Tuesday Terms: Disruption and Dissolution

This column will be the discussion of a term that is used in child welfare or adoption.

There are many terms associated with reversing an adoption: You can find definitions of revocation, disruption and dissolution and factors courts use here.

Disruption is an adoption that does not become final even though the adoptive parents have been identified. This may also be known as a failed adoption attempt.

Dissolution is the voiding of a legal adoption after there has been a final decree.

Though these terms carry distinct legal differences, the most-often-used term in the adoption world for legal dissolutions is “disruption”, so we will use the more common term here.

There are some helpful articles for preparing prospective adoptive parents and for adoptive parents considering dissolution. Though these following two articles are geared towards foster care, many aspects can apply to international adoption disruptions as well: Planning  and Support.

Truth About Training and Services

The truth is pre-adoption training is minimal, topics are often  self-chosen by prospective adoptive parents in many cases, there are no federal requirements, nonHague adoptions do not require it and many states require zero international adoptive parent training. Furthermore, no adoption agency provides adequate resources. There is no coordination of research across health disciplines and no coordination of post-adoption services. Many parents use placing agencies outside their state, so the local homestudy provider may not understand the country issues and the out of state agency does not know the resources local to the parent.

When this topic hits news articles, common responses from the general public have included “just get mental health help”, “insurance covers treatments” or “get state foster care involved.” These are dangerously uninformed. This wrongly assumes that:

• adoptive families have geographic availability, job security, insurance coverage and knowledge of how to access these specialized services.

• insurance pays for the extensive mental health therapies that are needed.

• health professionals with extended knowledge on the treatment of trauma-based backgrounds are numerous, easy to find, willing to take their child as a patient, or don’t require multiple references from other professionals before they treat your child.

• waitlists for experienced health professional that last many months don’t exist.

• diagnosing mental health issues is quick, easy or involves only seeing one health professional.

• some kind of amorphous “training” has prepared the parents to deal with behaviors associated with trauma and abuse backgrounds such as violence, fire-setting, sexual abuse and intimidation of family members, rage, running away, stealing, vandalism, and pitting family members against each other in the home.

• finding respite care for a child with extreme behavior problems is as easy as looking in the Yellow Pages.

• the child can will have relate-ability with parents, siblings, friends, and new community. A finite number of people have been raised in an orphanage and flown to a country with a different language and culture to be raised permanently there.

No book that anyone reads, no seminar that anyone attends prepares an adoptive parent for unexpected, painful parenting challenges. It is a complex, long-term puzzle to find the right order and type of help, medications, psychiatrists, psychologists, therapies, diagnoses that can fit into one’s budget, schedule and insurance…while staying sane and strong for your family. Sometimes, even years of exhaustive therapy and “help” by medical professionals cannot heal a hurt and traumatized child. What, then are parents expected to do?

Residential Treatment Centers (RTCs)

Others have suggested that children be taken to a residential treatment center. Well, in some states, you as a parent can call after your child has been diagnosed with a serious psychiatric disorder and enroll your child, but in other states your child has to have spent a certain number of days in an acute facility followed by a decision-making panel before entry. Other barriers include cost, lack of availability in the vicinity, long waitlists or specific hurdles like already sexually abused another person (vs. attempted to sexually abuse another person.)

Two ways that costs can be covered for a residential treatment center: If your child is on Medicaid or if you can get an IEP (individualized Education plan) from the public school district. Neither of these options come quick or easy and getting on Medicaid for some will not be an option. The out-of-pocket cost if you can’t obtain either of those options can be up to $125,000 per year. Stepdown care from a residential treatment center often is in a group home — out-of-pocket costs can be $75,000 per year. There are a limited number of specialty centers mostly in the Western US that run a cost of about $3,500/month.

Results vary in RTCs. Sometimes they are only a temporary reprieve on a long, painful, lonely road to disruption.

The Disruption Decision

Ability and consequences to terminate parental rights differs by state. Ramifications on other children in the household NEED to be considered before a decision in made. There is NOT a simple answer. Agencies sometimes help. Sometimes parents are left to advertise their children on websites, forums and unlicensed help groups.

In some states, terminating parental rights means declaring child abandonment. See here  for more information on this topic.

The 2007 summary of Child Neglect & Abandonment State Statutes from the National District Attorneys Association can be found here.

A conviction of child abandonment may prevent an adoptive parent from working with kids (which in turn can limit employment opportunities), may endanger custody of the other kids in the home or may curb or take away some rights, such as serving on juries, voting and owning firearms.

In the case of termination of parental rights to the state, the adoptive parent still may have to pay support until the child turns 18. State and adoption subsidies may assist in the cost. It is a myth that health insurance pays for this treatment or that if placed in foster care that the total expense would be covered by the state. The cost of support until age 18 even when the original adoptive parent is no longer parenting can cause bankruptcy and loss of your home. The combination of the factors of costs and legal consequences may cause an adoptive parent to choose to keep a violent child in their home. Divorce and adoptive parent emotional and psychological problems occur frequently. In tragic, high-profile cases, this has led to placing the adopted child in danger from the adoptive parent leading to abuse or death. This is what spawned our idea of tracking abuse in our How Could You? Hall of Shame files.

If a parent chooses to keep a child that exhibits violence and the child harms another child in their home, the adoptive parents can and have been charged with child endangerment. This is a lose/lose situation for the entire family. So sometimes, the decision between keeping the child or terminating parental rights is a catch 22.

REFORM Puzzle Piece