KU researchers will evaluate program aimed at supporting adoptive families

LAWRENCE — Researchers in the School of Social Welfare at the University of Kansas have secured a federal grant to evaluate a program designed to support adoptive parents and children to prevent disruptions or dissolutions of adoptions among families in Kansas and Missouri. If the program proves successful, they can help make it available for matched federal reimbursement in Kansas, Missouri and other states across the country.

KU researchers were awarded a four-year, $1.8 million grant from the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation within the U.S. Administration for Children and Families to evaluate FosterAdopt Connect’s Behavioral Interventionist Program, a program that serves adoptive families in Kansas and Missouri. 

The program provides an in-home behavioral intervention to children adopted from foster care as well as to their adoptive parents. Its primary goal is to prevent adoptive disruptions, such as psychiatric hospitalizations or residential treatment, and adoption dissolutions, in which parents give up their legal parental rights to their adopted child.

Brennan Miller, research associate in KU’s School of Social Welfare and principal investigator of the grant, said that nationwide, about 15% of adoptive families experience disruption and an estimated 1%-10% experience dissolution. FosterAdopt Connect’s Behavioral Interventionist Program is a neuro-informed program for children across stages of childhood.

“They provide coaching and modeling for parents. It’s a two-pronged approach that helps the child manage their trauma responses through in-home one-on-one, therapeutic interactions and provides caregivers with strategies to increase their sense of positive parenting,” Miller said. “The program is designed to deal with trauma and behavioral challenges to help kids improve behaviors and support families, so children get the support they deserve and parents don’t feel stranded.”

The program supports youths by teaching and practicing a range of skills, including self-regulation. Program staff focus on skills to manage challenging behaviors at various developmental stages of a young person’s life. 

Overall, the program aims to stabilize families, preventing further trauma, hospitalizations, residential treatment and returns to foster care.

Miller will lead the evaluation with co-principal investigators Becci Akin, professor of social welfare and co-director of the Center for Research to Transform Systems, and Erin Weston, associate researcher in the school.

The research team will evaluate the program to gauge its effectiveness at keeping adopted children in the home by analyzing data from families who have taken part in the program and comparing them to matched pairs using child welfare, Medicaid and U.S. Census Bureau data. The evaluation will determine if FosterAdopt Connect’s Behavioral Interventionist Program meets the Administration for Children and Families’ Title IV-E Prevention Services Clearinghouse Standards. If it meets the standards, the program could be reviewed and approved by the clearinghouse.

“Evidence for programs that effectively support adoptive families to prevent disruptions and dissolutions is rare, so this is an important opportunity to expand the research evidence for this group of children and families,” Weston said.

Akin noted the importance of a program being listed on the Prevention Services Clearinghouse.

“The clearinghouse is the federal government’s official gatekeeper for determining which programs qualify for federal reimbursement under the Family First Prevention Services Act,” she said. “Thus, if our study findings are positive, it could provide access to a new funding stream for serving families of adopted children, promoting more positive outcomes for these families.”