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These presentation slides summarize the methods and findings from two OPRE studies on post adoption and guardianship instability, including the NSCAW Adoption Study and the Agency Contact Study.

The NSCAW Adoption Study examines the extent to which children who exit foster care to adoption experience instability, the risk and protective factors for several types of formal (e.g., foster care reentry) and informal (e.g., child runs away or experiences homelessness) instability, and services and supports received by families who have adopted children who exited foster care.

Post adoption and guardianship instability, when children who have exited foster care to adoption and guardianship no longer live with their adoptive parent or legal guardian, occurs between 5% and 20% of the time. The Post Adoption and Guardianship Instability Tracking Toolkit is designed to help child welfare agencies develop a systematic way to track instability for children who exit foster care through adoption or guardianship.

The report explores the intentional and unintentional ways public child welfare agencies contact or receive information about the stability and well-being of children and youth who have exited the foster care system through adoption or guardianship.

For children living in foster care, adoption and guardianship are important permanency outcomes when reunification with their biological family is not an option. Most children living in adoptive or guardianship families do not reenter state custody after adoption or guardianship finalization. However, five to 20% of children may experience post adoption and guardianship instability (White et al., 2018). “Post adoption and guardianship instability” refers to situations in which children...