DCW Updates for National Adoption Month 2024

By Shelia Dalton, Adoption Program and ICAMA Administrator

November is National Adoption Month and this year’s national theme is Honoring Youth: Strengthening Pathways for Lasting Bonds. This message from the Children’s Bureau discusses the 2024 initiative to increase awareness of adoption issues across the nation.

The Division of Child Welfare’s goal is for children and youth to remain and or return home to their families, and we know that this is not always an option and so this leaves many children and youth in need of a permanent legal family. Children and youth are often adopted by kin or their foster parents, while others are in need of recruitment to identify permanent caregivers. While we are overjoyed when our children/youth achieve permanency and can leave our system, we cannot forget that adoption also comes with significant challenges, trauma, and loss. For those children and youth still waiting for permanency, connection, and belonging, our counties, caseworkers, and recruiters are doing their very best to help them achieve these significant milestones every day and assist in navigating the challenges.

In State Fiscal Year 2023-2024, our Colorado counties finalized 709 adoptions, which is only three less finalizations than last year. Out of those, 260 were kinship adoptions (37%). As of November 1, 2024, Colorado has 355 legally freed children/youth waiting for permanency, which is 40 fewer waiting children/youth than last year at this time, but we can do better.

Over the past year, DCW has tried to remain consistent and improve our practice statewide. Here are a few highlights of what we have been doing at DCW and the continued partnership with our county departments:

The standardized Adoption Assistance Negotiation Worksheet has now been in place for over one year and is required to be used in adoption assistance negotiations and renegotiations. It is also fully automated, making it easier to use. The goal of the worksheet has been to provide equity in adoption assistance agreements amongst adoptive families statewide to ensure that no matter which county they adopt from, there is consistency for children and youth and their needs. DCW, community partners and county departments met over the last several months to review and make changes to the worksheet; those changes will be in place later this year. Overall, county departments, adoptive parents, and community partners have expressed the worksheet being a positive tool.
DCW also partnered with Colorado State University to review data for the Adoption Assistance Negotiation Worksheet from the last year. This was to determine if the worksheet was providing consistency, identify problem questions, and ensure this was fair amongst all counties and age groups of children and youth. This powerpoint shows data trends in the preliminary findings of the worksheet evaluation. None of the categories showed significant differences between groups or had major flags. Categories that had discrepancies were attributed to the interpretation of the question, which was part of the new revisions that will be rolled out. CSU has also provided DCW ideas on how to better track adoption data and is assisting in the revision process.
DCW also understands that there are significant concerns for equity amongst children and youth with significant medical or developmental delays and challenges. Collaboration meetings and discussions have been held with HCPF regarding benefits, waivers, services and how best to ensure families moving towards adoption with children and youth with these significant needs will be able to have the support they need after adoption. DCW has also met with adoptive families to determine challenges they face, how they can be better supported and better ways to include those with lived experience to improve adoption practice.
DCW is also working on developing more adoption-specific training, as well as updating and creating Trails user guides and tip sheets for our county partners. County staff are a huge help in these developments.
DCW continues to partner with Raise the Future for Post Permanency Services and Supports. The goal of this program is to assist families who are no longer involved in the child welfare system (finalized adoption, reunification, reinstatement of parental rights) and need support to maintain children/youth in their homes. Services are available to all rural counties as part of this partnership, but Raise the Future is also working with families in the metro area on their own. Many counties also have their own post-permanency teams that work with their families.
DCW continues to review private adoption assistance requests which have increased this year.
Many county departments have National Adoption Days scheduled where they will celebrate the families who have adopted throughout the year, as well as children and youth being adopted on a specific date this month.
Please also this year’s National Adoption Month Press Release where we specifically highlight four Colorado adoptive families.