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Policy & Practice Perspective
May 2008
Prepared & Funded by: The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute
This paper by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute focuses on domestic transracial adoption nd assesses its use as a policy and practice approach in meeting the needs of African American children in foster care who cannot be safely reunited with their parents or placed with kin. The content of this paper – including its findings and recommendations – is being endorsed by the North American Council on Adoptable Children, the Child Welfare League of America, the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, the Adoption Exchange Association, the National Association of Black Social Workers, Voice for Adoption,1 and the Foster Care Alumni of America. In addition, the National Association of Social Workers, which has no policy for supporting research papers per se, endorses its recommendations.
The current federal law and policy governing consideration of race in foster and adoptive placements (MEPA/IEP) is being evaluated, as indicated by a September 2007 hearing convened by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. The Commission posed five questions regarding whether federal laws and policies governing the transracial adoption of children from foster care have accomplished the purposes for which they were created; those questions are examined in this paper.