Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability
Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability

Additional Strategies Would Help Address the Barriers to Successful Adoptions

Report 08-06, January 2008




Report Summary

  • Barriers to successful adoptive placements include finding families who want to adopt children with special needs, a lack of information about the children available for adoption, potential parents' confusion and frustration in navigating the adoption process, a lack of post-adoption services, and the unwillingness of relatives to disrupt a biological family.
  • Lead agencies, their subcontractors, and the department use various strategies to address these barriers. They use multiple strategies for recruiting adoptive parents, matching adoptive families with available children, and helping ensure post-adoption permanency. The department has developed initiatives to assist lead agencies in recruiting adoptive families and finding placements for children.
  • To better ensure successful adoption placements, the department and lead agencies should improve potential adoptive families' access to information, address frustrations and make the process less cumbersome, change policies and practices, and establish lead agency positions to help manage post-adoption services.


Related Reports
  1. DCF and Lead Agencies Have Made Progress in Reducing Barriers to Successful Adoptions
    Report 10-47 July 2010
  2. DCF Takes Action to Improve Implementation of State's Community-Based Care Initiatives
    Report 08-52 September 2008
  3. Lead Agencies Structure Their Adoption Programs in a Variety of Ways
    Report 08-05 January 2008
Copies of this report in print or alternate accessible format may be obtained by email OPPAGA@oppaga.fl.gov, telephone (850) 488-0021, or mail 111 W. Madison St., Room 312 Tallahassee, FL 32399-1475.
Copies of this report in print or alternate accessible format may be obtained by email OPPAGA@oppaga.fl.gov, telephone (850) 488-0021, or mail 111 W. Madison St., Room 312 Tallahassee, FL 32399-1475.
social services, health, human services, adoption, barriers, child welfare, foster care, community-based care, lead agencies, subcontracting, subcontracted providers, privatization, fee-for-service, relative placement, adoptive parent, adoptive placements, adoptive recruitment, minority adoption, minority recruitment, sibling group, special needs adoption, termination of parental rights, adoption specialist, adoption case management