Aging Out of Illinois Foster Care

This is a sad story that highlights how the money incentive is sometimes the only reason why children are adopted in Illinois. This is what happens when the only measure of success is adoption finalization, not the ACTUAL OUTCOME. This “completion” measure is also the only measure of success that the international adoption industry cares about, too.

One excerpt:

“Anne Holcomb, Mr. West’s caseworker and the coordinator for the Night Ministry’s Open Door Youth Shelter, said she was dismayed by the increase in homeless cases resulting from adopted youths who reach 18, the standard cutoff age for adoption subsidies in Illinois.

“I’m definitely seeing more failed adoptions,” she said. “I’m seeing more than I did in the ’90s and even more over the last four years, because these youths were adopted as kids and now they’re 18.”

With one of the largest child-welfare systems in the nation, Illinois had 51,331 children in state care in 1997. Often they bounced from foster home to foster home. Each new placement can add a new layer of trauma, experts said.

That same year, President Bill Clinton called on states to double the number of adoptions and permanent placements in five years because a focus on permanency would help both children and state budgets. Adoptive families received state assistance and provided children with a place to call home, while removing them from state rosters and reducing the number of caseworkers.

Between fiscal years 1985 and 1994, 8,180 children were adopted from the Illinois foster care system; between 1995 and 2004, the number had soared to 36,212, according to the Illinois Department of Child and Family Services.

Today the emphasis on permanency has shrunk the system to 15,413 children in fiscal year 2011, from its 1997 peak.”
Failed Adoptions Create More Homeless Youths
[New York Times 12/30/11 by Mirabah Knight]

REFORM Puzzle Piece