This morning a newscaster briefly covered a new report to be released by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute. According to the news, under the Multiethnic Placement Act of 1994 (widely heralded for “breaking down racial barriers to adoption”) agencies could not offer white parents who were adopting transracially education on racial issues in adoption.
W. T. F.
This article from the Chicago Tribune seems to offer the same interpretation:
The statute was designed to remove barriers and improve the prospects of finding permanent, loving homes for minority children … But the numbers have barely budged. Meanwhile, the law muzzled any agency that received federal aid from considering race at all—or risk a large fine.
That meant that organizations could not advertise for African-Americans or ask white parents about the demographics of their communities. They could not offer special training to racially mixed families unless it was offered to all adoptive parents. Social workers have sometimes taken black children to foster homes without mentioning race, only to have the child refused at the door.
I was aware of the Multiethnic Placement Act, but I had never heard that it restricted agencies from addressing transracial adoption issues. So basically it is as I feared: The law works to make it easier for white people to adopt whomever they wish to adopt.
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May 27, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Jae Ran
Yes it’s true. You can not single out and require any prospective adoptive parent who wants to adopt transracially to attend special training or fill out a questionnaire or have any additional requirements to adopt cross-racially. Not only will the agency be heavily fined if this is the case, but the social worker personally can be heavily fined and the state can lose up to 5% of their federal funding.
Many agencies handle this by requiring all prospective parents to attend “diversity” or “cross-cultural” trainings.
Also, there is a second huge part to the MEPA/IEPA legislation which REQUIRES agencies to have a pool of prospective parents that reflect the population of the children in their care. That would seem to mean that if the county had 60% children who are African American that the agency would recruit and retain about 60% African American families.
This is where the legislation has no teeth. If you fail on the first count you are fined. If you fail on the recruitment part – nothing happens. There is no fine or penalty attached to the second part of the law.
May 27, 2008 at 5:04 pm
Kathy
Right off the top of my head, I would say that the article you linked to is a twisted version of facts to suit the baby brokerages or even excuse them from their practice, which is to make money. Quite simply, the baby brokers made more money from International adoption, so that is where they steered prospective parents. This, of course, would now be changing, as the market in international adoption drys up.
MEPA does allow for some racial considerations, in the best interest of the child, especially if the child is older. And specifically where does MEPA spell out that training for paps about transracial issues is forbidden? Where, somebody show me!!! This is just a way for them to excuse themselves.
I know personal experience doesn’t have much weight, but if I had had just an inkling of this law in the 1990’s you can bet I would have turned in a MAJOR New York based adoption agency. And I wouldn’t be the only one.
Just because the landscape has changed doesn’t mean that these brokerage houses can pretend that their actions are somehow free from their past practices. And, in the final analysis, they are a big business, mostly run by a bunch of self-serving ….you can fill in the blank.
May 27, 2008 at 5:13 pm
Kathy
Jae Ran,
I just read your comment. Where does MEPA specifically mandate that training and addressing racial issues in adoption are prohibited?
Would you have any recommendations to amend MEPA?
May 27, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Kathy
One other quick question, how is it that states are penalized for using race as a criteria, but not penalized for the failure to recruit families that reflect the ethnicity of the children in it’s care? This is an arbritary enforcement and also seems to me that the race criteria enforcement is subject to how the law has been interpreted.
A lot of issues surrounding adoption are difficult to prove, subject to interpretation, and still basically fail the children in so many ways.
Even the new Hague convention training for parents is woefully lacking in my opinion. I saw one agency offering training, and the glaring fact that adult adoptees were not part of the “expert” advice was appalling.
May 27, 2008 at 6:57 pm
panracial
Kathy, a good book on black adoption and the law is Shattered Bonds by Dorothy Roberts who is a law professor (I believe at Yale.)
May 27, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Jae Ran
Kathy, MEPA and IEP don’t specify the trainings or questionnaires, etc. but these were tools that were being used by agencies that were found to be in violation of MEPA. Therefore, the Office of Civil Rights and the Administration of Children, Families and Youth came up with a guideline (here at http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/mepa/interneval.html) that includes the following below:
C. How does the agency ensure that the following practices do not occur?
Persons interested in adopting or fostering across RCNO lines are required to:
Y N answer additional questions because of the interest in adopting or fostering across RCNO lines?
Y N take additional training courses because of the interest in adopting or fostering across RCNO lines?
Y N move to a more diverse community?
Y N write additional narratives, such as a transracial adoption plan, because of the interest in adopting or fostering across RCNO lines?
Y N have additional caseworker visits because of the RCNO context?
Y N justify their interest in children of a different RCNO?
Y N meet different or higher licensing or approval standards in order to become a foster or adoptive parent of a child of a different RCNO?
May 27, 2008 at 8:17 pm
Kathy
Thanks Jae Ran for the link. I am assuming that these guidelines were introduced 2003? after some lawsuits. These guidelines are not in the best interests of the child and haven’t resulted in any significant changes in the numbers of children remaining in foster care either.
It seems to me that a few reckless lawsuits have served only to harm the children MEPA was seeking to protect. Yes, I can see where white privilege has resulted in twisting this law to advantage white adoptive parents, while ignoring the special needs of the children, and ignoring the specific mandate to recruit adoptive parents reflecting the ethnicity of the children in care.
Thank you Panracial for your book recommendation. After reading the book review online, it’s interesting to note the metaphorical relationship between fostercare, adoption and slavery, and also, I am reminded once again of the Native American Boarding Schools and the horrific attempts at conversion to white, european culture and standards.
May 27, 2008 at 8:31 pm
panracial
You’re welcome. It also reminds me of the aborigine lost generation, and the Native American adoption abuses fought by Congressman Udall’s ICWA atc.
May 28, 2008 at 3:38 am
CJsDaddy
I’m going to have to really read up on this because I’m totally perplexed. Having adopted internationally, our agency required training, reading, and an actual documented plan in regards to cross ethnic adoption. I know some of this came about due to the Hague convention, but I can tell you some agencies are taking this rather seriously.
Whatever the case, I’ve read some of your views on cross-ethnic adoption and I wonder what you would suggest for someone considering a foster-adopt program. 75% of the kids in our county that need homes are African American or Latino. Although we have not signed up for anything, our social worker leaves the impression that they require even more rigorous training and require the ability to provide minority role models. I’m not sure how this is enforced, so perhaps these are more like resource suggestions that they require – kinda like “voluntary spring practice” in sports lingo?
May 28, 2008 at 5:35 am
panracial
My first instinct would be to see if the kids really need foster-adoption or if family reconciliation is possible. For example, in many states neglect is defined as not meeting children’s material needs whether or not family’s have the money to do so – so parents can lose kids for just being poor. Furthermore, while reconciliation with parents determined not to be dangers to their kids is acknowledged as the healthiest possible outcome for children in state care, the main service CPS offers to minority families is foster care and adoption of their children while white families are offered food stamps, therapy, and other resources that allow families to stay together. With the goal of freeing up minority kids for white adoption, minority birth parent rights get terminated, while there is almost no market for older minority kids – when they are adopted, they are most likely to be adopted by minority single women. What happens then is that colorblind adoption practices and family termination free kids for adoption, abrogating the possibility of their rejoining their natal families, and leaving them trapped and unwanted. Kinship or in community adoption and foster care, known as the second best alternative to natal families (and having a much lower rate of child abuse as opposed to the astronomical child abuse rates of typical foster care)also often gets undermined — grandparent rights are terminated when parents lose their rights and some social workers make the claim that if a parent is unfit, by extension, everyone in the family or community is also unfit. When we look, for example, at how drug use rates are much higher in the suburbs than the ghetto, we see how unfair this argument is. No one would claim that a white middle class child whose parents are drug abusers would be endangered by being placed within the white middle class community, but that claim is often made with minority people. Futhermore, some adoption advocates actually stress cross racial placements, believing that being raised within minority communities doesn’t prepare minority kids for larger society and that being raised in a white family helps kids to assimilate. Also, while non-related foster parents get a stipend for caring for kids, related foster parents often do not – making such care unaffordable. The best way to help black/latino foster kids is through anti-poverty programs, non-discriminatory cps practices, and advocacy for birth families. Furthermore, while minority families adopt at high rates, they tend to do so informally, often due to the cost of the adoption process – aid to minority families who want to adopt is crucial. Minority foster children often get stuck in care because they are frequenly labeled special needs simply on the basis of being minority. I think the main issue is addressing the root cause of why 75% of kids in the county are in CPS care (reflecting national disproportionate minority rates) when 75% of endangered children aren’t black/latino. Many adoption agencies either don’t care to or don’t know how to recruit minority families, although minority churches and other alternative networks, when contacted, are often extremely talented in finding minority homes for kids. Before I adopted a foster kids, I’d see if family reconciliation, kinship adoption, or same race adoption were feasible. I’d try to be the kid’s advocate before I tried to be his parent.
That said, if you are working with the framework of a foster adopt program, I certainly would try to become as culturally competent as possible. I would also make sure that, beyond providing minority role models, you make sure that you live in a community with a minority presence and that minorities are integrated into your life- your kids will need more than a superficial connection to their heritage. I’m not sure how your local adoption agency enforces rules either:) What I do know is that it’s important that you not try to meet diversity criteria with the goal of acquiring a kid (not that you would do this) but that you try to meet diversity criteria because you realize that’s in the child’s best interest. What I mean by this is, I’m a college student in a town with no minority population except for the minority students and professors at the college. However, cross-racial adoption is pretty common in the town. There is a club at the college based around the sole principle of letting the children play with minority students. There are also times when the minority students comb and cut the children’s hair — many of the children wear dreadlocks and braids so that the parents don’t have to deal with the kids hair – or even learn how to to do it, beyond what the students do on a periodic basis. Some of the parents have four and five year olds and still don’t know how to care for their hair – even things as simple as combing it. Now don’t get me wrong, these parents are intelligent, caring, warm-hearted people whose love for their children is evident, but I can’t help thinking, while the idea of the club is nice, shouldn’t these people live in a town where there is at least a black hairstylist/barber beyond the local college students? Students are recruited into the club by officers who stress that the adoptees are the only brown faces at their schools and that students are their only minority contacts — it’s like the parents want to have it both ways — they want children of color but they aren’t willing to move into a community where those children won’t be isolated — they’re satisfied with their children only seeing other brown people a few hours on a biweekly or monthly basis, only on a college campus, and only within the context of the college as though minority people aren’t an integrated part of communities. Furthermore, as professors don’t participate in the program, it means their contact with non-whites is limited to 18-20 year olds — there are no black/brown/mixed teachers, preachers/doctors/bus drivers/lawyers/cashiers in these kids lives. And as fun as students are — they aren’t the equivalent of brown little kid playmates:) Adopting a child of another color means more than opening your home to that particular child — it means opening your home up to a culture and a worldview. To adopt a foster child is to ask a kid to take an immense leap of trust – to adopt cross-racially requires even more of the child. If you plan to do that, you should at least be willing to live in a community where the child isn’t the only one of his culture — I would think that somebody unwilling to make that sacrifice is unwilling to seek the best for their kids. It’s like asking the child to make all the adjustments without the adult making some. (When I use “you” and sound kind of strict, I mean more a hypothetical you then you cjsdaddy)
The National Association of Black Social Workers has some great position papers that I suggest you look at:
http://www.nabsw.org/mserver/PreservingFamilies.aspx
http://www.nabsw.org/mserver/KimshipCare.aspx
That said, while I believe in family reconcilation (with non-abusive parents) first, kinship and in community adoption/foster care second, and same race/nation/culture adoption third, and cross racial/cultural/national adoption as a last resort, that doesn’t mean I’m absolutely against interracial adoption. I believe it’s possible to be a great cross racial adoptive parent. I also think, however, that good intentions aren’t enough.
Finally, I encourage all people adopting from foster care to adopt the least adoptable children that they could love unconditionally – children with real special needs, sibling groups (including half siblings), teen children (including very old teens), children with behavioral problems, complex histories, or who have been abused or neglected (even severely), and black boys who are the least picked (regardless of other factors and especially if their complexions are dark) are most in need of homes. I encourage people not to automatically adopt a five year old biracial girls — chances are, if you don’t adopt them someone else will, but the teen black brothers may never get picked if you don’t offer them a home.
Sorry for the long response, CJsDaddy, but you seem like a nice guy and I have a lot of passion about this subject so I want to share anything I think could possibly help you.
May 28, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Jae Ran
CJ’s Daddy, I think you’ll find the biggest difference is that MEPA/IEP covers domestic, US Foster care adoptions – not international. There are essentially three bodies of legislation that govern adoptions in the US. THe Hague for international adoptions, ICWA for American Indian/First Nations children and MEPA/IEP for non-Indian foster care children.
If you break down the main point of all these three laws what you’ll find is that for every child in the world who is adopted, race and culture is one of the fundamental considerations – unless the child is black.
May 28, 2008 at 1:23 pm
gabriela63
Jae Ran, congrats for getting the “last word” in in the New York Times!
Quoted from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/27/us/27adopt.html?em&ex=1212120000&en=fb437e216ccf2b5a&ei=5070 :
Jae Ran Kim, a social worker in Minnesota and a transracial adoptee herself, said social service agencies felt damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
“If you talk to parents about racial and cultural issues they are likely to face,” Ms. Kim said, “you risk violating the law, and if you try to recruit families through minority organizations, even that can look like you are using race.”
She added: “The law does need to reflect that fact that race is an issue in our society, and prospective white parents need to realize that this goes beyond whether you can love your child or even whether you live in a diverse neighborhood. This is about what is in the best interest of the child, not the parent.”
Regarding your point above, is it just black or is it any non-Indian child of color residing in the US?
May 28, 2008 at 8:12 pm
CJsDaddy
Thank you so much panracial and Jae Ran for your suggestions and more importantly for your advocacy. Also, thanks for your kind words. You find me here and there defending adoption of all sorts mostly because I believe strongly in the institution conceptually. I also believe that a high percentage of parents pursue adoption for the right reasons, and still more think their reasoning is sound and have no way of knowing otherwise.
On the other hand, a lot (most?) adoptive parents assume that the issue of whether a child needs a home is not their problem. It’s not that need isn’t important to people, it’s that they believe the agencies and/or the state are referring them children who truly need homes. In other cases, they are basically working within the system trying to do the best they can. Most people who go through an foster and/or adoption will tell you the system is hosed in a variety of ways. I know it seems anecdotal, but there are lots of stories (some I’ve heard first hand) of children removed from homes when they should not have been, and others stuck in limbo while their parents receive more chances than seems logical. Then you have abusive foster parents that literally take in kids for the money – I even saw an advertisement on the side of a bus about “earn money as foster parents.” Then again, you have foster parents that also get whacked by the system waiting to adopt while a judge continues to give those repeated chances before forcing TPR.
I really like your comment — “It’s like asking the child to make all the adjustments without the adult making some. ”
I also respect your suggestion to adopt older kids, siblings, etc. While there may be reasons within a given family that this isn’t possible (for instance some kind of sexual abuse in the history of a child already in the family would not match with a older child having certain behavior problems or abuse of his own), it’s important that people not consider certain kids as unadoptable.. There’s a lot of stigma out there that is undeserved.
I look forward to continued reading here.
May 28, 2008 at 10:13 pm
Jae Ran
gabriela63, I was being too flip before. I said black kids because the majority of the kids in the system who are affected are black. But you are right; it is also any other non-ICWA child of color. In my area, for example, there is a large Hmong (Asian) and Latino population; those kids, however are usually reunited or placed with families and thus don’t end up in foster care waiting for adoption; it’s very rare.
May 29, 2008 at 9:32 pm
Melinda
I don’t know if you’ve seen it already, but TIME has a related story:
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1809722,00.html?imw=Y