Adoption Outreach: Goal is to get more black kids placed

Adoptive parents go to great lengths to bring a child home.

Some hire attorneys and some travel to the other side of the world. Nearly all endure probing background checks, the worry that things will fall through and, hardest of all, the wait, which can take years. Yet one Omaha adoption agency says it can place an infant in an approved home in as little as three to six months.

The reason for the quick placements? The infants are black.

The people who line up to adopt infants tend to be white and looking for a white child. Black families, who tend to adopt through foster care or make informal arrangements to care for others' children, do not seek infant adoptions in Omaha at the same rate as white families.

Other issues at play in the number of black children needing homes are income levels, cultural attitudes and perceptions about adoption - some owing to the former government policy that sought to get children placed in homes of like race.

"There are more women of color making adoption plans for their babies than there are families who are approved to adopt them," said Cheryl Murray, executive director of the Omaha-based Adoption Links Worldwide, which contracts with agencies in the South to place black infants in adoptive homes here.

Whether black children are being willingly placed for adoption or coming through foster care, finding homes for them can pose a tougher job than finding homes for white children.

"It's much more challenging," said Christie Abdul of the Child Saving Institute in Omaha. "When we have an African-American birth parent or biracial (child), we have a much, much smaller pool of families to choose from."

Many children need permanent homes; and, of course, the vast majority of those who are available for adoption are white.

In Nebraska, on average, 350 children are available.

In Iowa on any given day, 125 children are eligible for - and want - adoption. Unlike Nebraska, Iowa doesn't count teens who have chosen to age out of the system without being adopted.

Among the Nebraska children needing homes is Jodeci, a 16-year-old boy with glasses, a too-big T-shirt and a shy smile.

"He wants a family that enjoys doing activities together, including bowling, watching scary movies, going out to eat or just going for walks," reads his entry in an online gallery of available Nebraska foster children. "He longs for a place to call home."

Another entry shows a montage of 12-year-old Bobbie wearing a pressed white blouse and holding a daisy. Bobbie, her entry reads, "thrives when given one-on-one attention."

And an entry for Pauline describes the 6-year-old girl with multicolored braids as someone who loves "Muppets from Space," Pop-Tarts and the color purple. "She loves to color, and her current challenge is working on staying within the lines."

The pressing need for permanent homes for black children is nothing new in a country where more than a half-million children - a third of them black - are in state foster care systems at any given time.

One 2007 federal government study indicated that black children were more than twice as likely as their white peers to wind up in foster care. And, on average, they remained in foster care nine months longer.

That report, released by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, cited a national black poverty rate that is four times the white rate. The Omaha area has one of the nation's highest black poverty rates and one of the widest disparities between black and white income, according to census survey data from 2005 and 2006.

With poverty, the GAO report's authors said, can come single parenthood, insufficient affordable housing, a lack of support services and increased contact with officials who are supposed to report child abuse and neglect.

Poor black families also are more likely to face racial bias and cultural misunderstanding when encountering white teachers, police officers and social workers.

Some efforts under way seek to recruit adoptive families.

The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, working with court officials and private agencies, is ramping up efforts to streamline the adoption of foster-care children and better tell their stories on Internet listings.

The African-American Empowerment Network, a 20-month-old Omaha coalition that advocates self-help solutions to societal problems, and Sigma Treatment Foster Care of Omaha, the state's only black-owned foster agency, promote adoption.

At the same time, a changing international adoption climate may result in more prospective parents adopting domestically. China, which places more children in U.S. homes each year than any other country, has tightened its requirements, and the application-to-placement time frame is dragging to three years or more.

Korea, one of the most established international programs, is seeking to reduce the number of its orphans going abroad. Meanwhile, Guatemala, Romania, Vietnam - among the countries that long have placed children in the United States - have halted or slowed adoptions.

Murray, of Adoption Links Worldwide, urges parents considering adoption to call.

"If you really are truly committed to raising a child of color," she said, "then please come to us, because we need you for the moms we're working with."

But Murray emphasized that the agency's goal is to find good homes for babies - not find babies for couples. And placement is no guarantee: Applicants must pass state and agency tests and be chosen by a birth mother.

"I don't want people rushing in here saying, 'Good, I want a baby,'" she said. "Race matters."

She and other adoption advocates caution against jumping into transracial adoption without careful consideration and training.

Murray, who is white and single, adopted a black infant seven years ago. She said she is well acquainted with the problems that crop up - such as hearing her son being asked by a peer about "that white lady."

Tonya Moore, with the Nebraska Children's Home Society, advises: "Don't do it just because you want a child."

Moore, who is black and has adopted two black daughters from foster care, runs support groups and training sessions primarily for white parents of black children. She has written a book on transracial adoption.

Prior to working with white parents of black children, Moore assumed that black children needed to be in black homes for cultural and practical reasons. Who better to teach the bitter lessons of racism and instill pride in the traditions, heroes and stories of black life?

That was the position the National Association of Black Social Workers took when it successfully lobbied states to allow race to be a sole determining factor when placing black children into adoptive homes. Federal laws passed in the mid-1990s did away with that practice in favor of finding permanent homes.

Moore still worries that the availability of black children will drive the decisions of adoptive families that, in her view, sometimes place inordinate priorities on cost and speed.

She said that no child should be some family's Plan B.

Murray agreed, but said her agency and others could not adequately serve birth mothers of color without offering them more of a selection of potential adoptive parents.

The need to find parents for African-American children was a major factor in Murray's decision to say no to an emerging adoption country, Ethiopia.

Murray said she did not want to reduce the pool of would-be parents of black children by sending some of those seeking to adopt out of the United States.

Adam Pertman, who runs a New York-based think tank on adoption, said decisions about whether and whom to adopt are complex and personal.

He said black families historically have not formally adopted at the pace white families do, but research indicates they would if recruited.

He pointed out that black families have a long record of providing care for relatives. And he said the number of black parents adopting from foster care is significant and growing.

Omaha's main adoption agencies said they see few prospective black families seeking infants. Larger numbers adopt through foster care.

With the exception of one biracial woman, all of the prospective adoptive parents waiting for an infant at Catholic Charities and Lutheran Family Services are white. The 90 waiting families at Nebraska Children's Home include one black couple and three couples where one spouse is Hispanic. The rest are white.

Of the Child Saving Institute's foster families who potentially could adopt, 30 are white, 19 are black and three are interracial.

One factor driving adoption choices is cost. International adoptions can run $20,000 or more, including travel. Adoption Links' minority infant program starts at $10,000.

Nebraska and Iowa do not charge fees for adopting foster children and, in many cases, pay adoptive families for medical and other costs they assume. Many Iowa families that adopted foster children receive a monthly stipend until the children reach adulthood.

Murray defended her agency's price tag; she said the cost helps pay for services the agency provides to birth mothers, who generally choose to parent their children. Of 45 birth mothers last year, two decided to place their children with adoptive families.

The infants the agency places in adoptive homes tend to come from Southern states, which have bigger black populations.

The cost of adoption is one reason some people decide to become foster parents.

Because the state works to keep a biological family intact, a fraction of the children in foster care wind up free to adopt. Getting to that point can take years.

Last year, the 478 Nebraska children adopted through foster care had spent, on average, 38 months in foster care. That's more than a year longer than the federal benchmark of 24 months.

In Iowa, foster children spend an average of 28 months in state care before being adopted.

Roger Munns, a spokesman for the Iowa Department of Human Services, credited a long-standing practice of making simultaneous reunification and adoption plans.

Iowa also is aiming to reduce its own disproportionate rate of black children in state care with an effort called parent partners. African-American parents who regained their children from foster care are serving as coaches for other parents trying to get their children back.

"The old bugaboo about 'The state just wants my kid, is out to get me' just (seems to be) down," Munns said.

Nebraska also is trying to reduce time in foster care and to increase adoptions.

The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services is working to increase the number of foster placements with relatives. State court officials launched an initiative in 2006 to speed court hearings and get abused and neglected children into permanent homes as quickly as possible.

The state also entered into a nearly $480,000 contract with Omaha agencies, Adoption Links, Child Saving Institute and Lutheran Family Services.

These are the agencies that previously had contracts and were criticized by lawmakers because of a slower-than-expected pace of adoptions.

Todd Landry, director of the state's division of children and family services, said the agencies fulfilled two of three goals related to adoption: reducing the number of times a foster child's placement changed and increasing the safety of those placements.

He said the new contract narrowly focuses on adoption-related activities.

The agencies are supposed to help the state more quickly recruit adoptive parents and place children in adoptive homes. They are conducting in-depth searches of these children's backgrounds in an effort to find a relative, neighbor or teacher willing to adopt them.

Part of the effort involves doing a better job of telling the children's stories in Internet postings. Nebraska's current listing is outdated and incomplete. Some children already have aged out of the system and nearly all shown are adolescents. The average age of an adoptable foster child in Nebraska is almost 6.

The state is hoping to have the update completed by September.

Nebraska's Internet listing will be modeled, in part, on the Child Saving Institute's site, which features professional photographs and brief but compelling stories about each child.

The entries reflect each child's uniqueness - and the need to find each of them a good home, said Landry.

"We need as many families as are able to come forward and consider adopting and fostering."


• Contact the writer: 444-1136, erin.grace@owh.com