The Transracial Adoption and the Multi-Ethnic Placement Act

The number of children in the foster care system continues to increase. While the foster care system is essential in helping abused, abandoned, and neglected children, many children remain in foster care for long periods of time when family reunification or adoption is planned. Court delays can often extend the time between when children enter the foster care system and when they are placed into permanent homes. Significant differences exist in the quality of care and outcomes for children depending on their race and ethnicity. The percentage of children of color in the foster care system is larger than the percentage of children of color among the general U.S. population. However, the occurrence of child abuse and neglect is at about the same rate in all racial/ethnic groups.

Racial disproportionality and disparity in child welfare represents a multifaceted phenomenon originating from historical, theoretical socioeconomic and policy trends that has shaped this service over the past decades. There are many theories that have been proposed to explain why racial disproportionality and disparity exists in child welfare. It has been recognized the underlying roots of racial disproportionality and disparity are intricate and often coincides. Racial disproportionate in child welfare will be the focus of this research. I will focus on Racial Bias and Discrimination of the child welfare agencies, particularly the child protective services. The research suggests the one of the reasons for the over representation of minority(colored) children in child welfare come from the different treatment of race or due to racial biases (Chung, 1998). This theory also suggests this treatment can be external or internal in the welfare system; however I will focus only on the implication of internal welfare agencies (i.e. child protective specialist). Child protective specialists’ culture and policies may lead to unbalanced treatment of families of color. CPS workers may have biases towards families of color which could affect the decision making at any point of the investigation. This may not have occurred intentionally by the worker, however, due to institutional racism, which may stem from policies and practices has posited to contribute to

In the past year and a half with events like DPAL, Native American rights along with the rights of other minority groups in the United States haven’t been shown the same rights as Caucasians when it comes to civil liberty issues. In 1978 Congress passed the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). Under the ICWA tribes have significant input on whether the removal of children from them is necessary, “efforts must be made to support and rehabilitate a family before its child is placed into foster care or adopted.” (Ryznar, 2013). The ICWA also was enacted to examine how it “establishes standards for state-court child custody proceedings involving Indian children… “the consequences…of abusive child welfare practices that [separated] Indian children from their families and tribes through adoption or foster care placement, usually in non-Indian homes.” (Cornell University Law School). In 2009, a couple from South Carolina, Melanie and Matthew Capobianco, wanted to adopt a baby whose father (Dusten Brown) was an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation and mother Christina Maldonado of Hispanic background. Due to Brown being a registered member of the Cherokee Nation, and under the ICWA, a child that

Parents wishing to adopt have challenged the adoption laws regarding American-Indian children. For many decades, people wanting to adopt African-American children from disturbing situations have been put through several issues. A law was passed called the “Indian child welfare act” to end what was then a common practice. The state claims they thought that American-Indian children were better off in homes with non-Indian parents. A handful of recent lawsuits say the federal law and similar legislation at state levels make it harder to find stable homes for children. they’ve had many cases fall apart, because parents adopting don’t want the children. Most adopting parents believe it's unfair to them if they can’t adopt American-Indian children.

While the number of Latino children in foster care continues to increase, there is a shortage of Latino foster care/adoptive parents to take children in when they are placed in the system. Although it is not required that a Latino child be matched with a Latino family, it can be of great benefit for the child to be placed within their racial/ethnic group (Bausch, 1999). Reasons for the lack of available foster/adoptive parents in this community are greatly affected by Latino perceptions of foster care and adoption, cultural beliefs, and organizational barriers (Quintanilla, 2002).

I think a big problem came from the foster-care workers. “Some foster-care workers said that matching skin shade was a legitimate way of easing a child’s adjustment to a new environment…” (Bernstein 113, 2001). In some situations I do believe that it would be hard for a child to adjust to a certain kind of environment but that does not mean that the only thing that should be matched up is skin color. If a child needs a home and their skin color happens to be different from the adoptive parents, so what. They are still going to receive the care they need regardless. I do not know about everyone else but if it was between getting foster care parents who are a different race than me or not getting foster care parents at all I would choose getting them.

The overrepresentation of African American children in the foster care system is a major issue in the United States. African American children only represent about fourteen percent of the child population in the United States, yet represents for thirty percent of the children in the foster care system (Lorthridge, 2011). Ards (2012) stated that African American children are one and a half times more likely to be involved with child protective services and two times more likely to be placed in an out-of-home placement compared to any other race. Being a minority in a country, but the majority in an institution, such as foster care, is a significant problem. Not only is the overrepresentation of African American children a matter of question, but their experience while in foster care is concerning as well. African American children are overrepresented at every aspect in the foster care system and the numbers are not decreasing. According to Anyon (2011), African American children are overrepresented at every stage/decision point in the foster care system. The five stages are known as the five key decision points, which are, report of abuse and/or neglect, referral of report for investigation, reunification, out-of-home placement and termination of parental rights, and exiting the foster care system (Harris, 2008).

Unfamiliar with extended family child-rearing practices and communal values, government social service workers attempted to ‘rescue’ children from their Aboriginal families and communities, devastating children’s lives and furthering the destitution of many families. Culture and ethnicity were not taken into consideration as it was assumed that the child, being pliable, would take on the heritage and culture of the foster/adoptive parents (Armitage, 1995). The forced removal of children and youth from their Native communities has been linked with social problems such as “high suicide rate, sexual exploitation, substance use and abuse, poverty, low educational achievement and chronic unemployment” (Lavell-Harvard and Lavell, 2006, p.144). Newly designated funds from the federal to the provincial governments were “the primary catalysts for state involvement in the well-being of Aboriginal children…as Ottawa guaranteed payment for each child apprehended” (Lavell-Harvard and Lavell, 2006, p.145). Exporting Aboriginal children to the United States was common practice. Private American adoption agencies paid Canadian child welfare services $5,000 to $10,000 per child (LavellHarvard and Lavell, 2006). These agencies rarely went beyond confirming the applicant’s ability to pay, resulting in minimal screening and monitoring of foster or adoptive parents (Fournier and

Neil Sherman, a former attorney general in Flagstaff, Arizona who worked in the Department of Child Safety (DCS) for two years, agreed with the general consensus: children of color do have a harder time in the system as well as a harder time getting adopted. Sherman stated that from his perspective, the reasoning behind this is the higher number of reports coming in from people in the lives of these children of color as there are more people, per say, who see them and report or suspect abuse compared to white children,. The role the DCS plays in the mechanics of the system is removing children when they are in evident danger and placing them into the system. “The foster care system and model is inherently flawed and we want to fix it; some parts are good, some are bad, some folks take kids in only for extra cash, some really want to help other families,” Sherman said. There aren’t nearly enough foster families out there for children in general, and the amount that are available can vary

The second account of a changing stance toward children’s rights was evolution alongside women’s rights. Before this time, women and children were seen as unimportant under the law, whereas a father was given almost total control over all matters regarding his wife and children. If a father was violent or neglectful, society simply turned their shoulder to it. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, laws pertaining to the family system began to change. A new law recognized the equal rights of fathers and mothers with the mother’s rights reigning over the fathers in regards to the children. Also, the legal system began viewing children as important to the future of society, therefore “appropriate objects of the court’s

To understand some of these issues, the focus will primarily be directed towards how the law views same-sex adoptions. An analysis will compare and contrast on the upbringing of children who have been adopted and the

To the thousands of children in foster care, adoption means being part of a family. Adoption signifies a chance to be loved, wanted, and cared for properly. Every year thousands of children enter the foster care system. In the year 2010 alone, 245,375 children entered foster care, of that number over 61,000 were black. An astounding 30,812 black children were waiting for adoption in 2010 (AFCARS). With so many children needing homes, it would seem their adoption would be open to any and all loving families, yet this is not the necessarily the case. Transracial adoption, which traditionally alludes to black children placed with white families, is riddled with difficulties. While transracial adoption can be a successful solution, many

Being introduced into a new family is only one of many obstacles that lies ahead for

There was a court case, Baby Girl v. Adoptive Couple, in which a child who was partially Cherokee Indian, because of her father, and Hispanic, because of her mother. The adoption of Baby Girl was a difficult one due to the fact that she has an ancestry of Cherokee Indian. Therefore, under the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), the adoption of Baby Girl seemed impossible because Biological Father had the right to have custody of his child, Baby Girl, if he chose to. So, the court greatly sees that by giving Baby Girl back to Biological Father would be in the child’s best interest under the ICWA, because there is the assumption that if she is with her Biological Father and her culture, she will not suffer any type of emotional distress. For

The policy that the government should choose to allow for any parent to adopt children is the Every Child Deserves a Family Act. Under this act more