Vol. 13, No. 1• November 2008

Successful Adoptions

Many things contribute to successful foster parent adoptions. One of the most important is the adoptive family itself. According to the National Resource Center for Family-Centered Practice and Permanency Planning (n.d.) resource families that successfully adopt children from foster care:

• Like to give and help
• Are satisfied with their lives
• Are resourceful
• Are tolerant of loss, anxiety, and ambiguity
• Have a sense of humor
• Are involved with the child in the community

Furthermore, researchers who studied foster/adoptive families in the early 1980s found that families who successfully adopted the children in their care had the following characteristics (Meezan & Shireman, 1985b):

• They expected the children would be placed long-term and had the children in their home for a longer period of time than foster parents who did not choose to adopt.
• They enjoyed the children and were able to be actively involved with them.
• The foster parents had some acceptance of the birth family's positive attributes and were able to talk about them with their children. However, these foster families also perceived the children to be similar to themselves in some way.
• The children who were adopted by their foster families had successfully resolved their ties to their birth families and were younger than children not adopted by their foster families.

Source: Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2005

Copyright � 2008 Jordan Institute for Families