Recruitment News

November/December, 2003

MARE Changes Coming in January '04

Most adoption exchanges around the country are the “center of activity” in facilitating the adoption of children waiting in foster care. That is, families who are interested in waiting children in those states contact their state exchange for more information about children, rather than contacting the child’s worker directly. According to other state exchanges, this allows for children’s workers to focus their energies on finding the most appropriate family for a child, rather than fielding dozens of phone calls from families who may not be appropriate for a particular child, or who do not yet have an approved family assessment (homestudy.) It also allows the adoption exchanges to assist families who have not begun the family assessment process by providing them with more information about the adoption process in general, including referring them to agencies that may be able to assist them with a family assessment.

In February 2001, MARE initiated a “pilot project” to assess the viability of the MARE office receiving all inquiries about waiting children on the Exchange – instead of having prospective adoptive families contact the child’s worker directly. The project was tested on the MARE website only, and only included children listed with five specific agencies:

Lutheran Adoption Service, (Detroit area)
Orchards Children’s Services
Whaley Children’s Center
Wayne County FIA
Saginaw County FIA

These five agencies were chosen because of the number of children they serve (approximately one-quarter of children listed on the Exchange).

When a family is interested in a child listed by one of these five agencies, that family completes an online form after choosing one of the following three options

They have an approved homestudy/Family Assessment,
They are in the process of having a homestudy/Family Assessment completed, or
They do not have a homestudy/Family Assessment.

This online form is then submitted via email to the MARE office. If the family selected option #1 or #2, the information they provided is then disseminated to the child’s worker, the family’s worker, and the family. Both the family’s worker and children’s worker are asked to make contact with each other to gather more information and explore the possibility of a placement. MARE then follows up with all parties three weeks after the initial inquiry. If a family selects option #3 (no homestudy/assessment is in process or completed,) they are provided general information about the adoption process including information regarding adoption agencies who can assist them in obtaining a homestudy/assessment.

The pilot project has allowed MARE to gather data in certain areas, including how timely workers contact each other; whether families are appropriate for particular children; and whether children are still available for adoption.

The process has empowered families and their workers to pursue adoption of waiting children. The fact that 21 placements have occurred to date – as well as numerous placements between inquiring families and children who were not a part of the pilot project — shows that this intake approach (i.e. having MARE receive and facilitate child-specific inquiries) has the potential to help children move into permanent families.

The pilot project also gave MARE an opportunity to track (and often times resolve) various problems that arose. In some instances, families inquired about children who were in the care of the same agency as the family. In one particular instance, the family inquired about a child who was in care with their own worker! These instances showed that workers may not always share information with each other – even within the same agency. Using the three-week follow-up letters, MARE also discovered that children’s workers weren’t always returning phone calls to family’s workers – often after several attempts. It also became quite clear that children’s workers – for whatever reason – were often not following the 10-day timeframe as required by FIA Adoption Policy. Family’s workers were sending homestudies to children’s workers and following up with phone calls – and months later, the children were still available for adoption. Initial phone calls to children’s workers indicate that they either are not aware of the 10-day policy, are aware but unsure of how it works, or feel it is arbitrary and doesn’t need to be followed.

As of December 1, 2003 – almost three years after the pilot project was initiated – 2,347 families have inquired about children listed on the MARE website. Of those families, 53% (1,251) indicate they have an approved homestudy/Family Assessment, and 9% (204) indicate they are in the process of having a homestudy/Family Assessment completed. The remaining 38% (892) are Michigan families who indicated they did not have a homestudy/Family Assessment. These families were provided with more information about adoption, including referral to an agency that could complete an assessment.

Of the 1,455 families who inquired that either have a current homestudy, or are in the process of completing an assessment, 64% (936) are from Michigan, and 36% are from outside of Michigan.

These families inquired about 467 specific children, for a total of 2,566 inquiries (some families inquired about multiple children; a few families inquired repeatedly about the same child).

Where Do We Go From Here?

Beginning January 15, 2004, all inquiries about children listed on the MARE website (not just children from the five aforementioned agencies) will be processed through the MARE office. (The MARE book, however, will remain in its current form at this time, and will still list the worker’s name, agency and phone number for each child.)

Families – or family’s workers – will continue to complete an online form to inquire about a specific child or children (please see “We Want Your Feedback” below, for further explanation). MARE will continue to follow up on these inquiries three weeks after the inquiry is initially received. MARE will also begin a second round of follow-up letters, six weeks after the initial inquiry is received (and three weeks after the first follow-up letter is sent). This will allow us to continue gathering information about the status of the child, the family, and the possibility for placement, as well as give us the opportunity to intercede in any problematic areas.

Each agency’s adoption supervisor will receive monthly reports about all children in their care who are currently in the MARE book. The report will contain information about the family or families that have inquired, and the status of their follow-up. Children will continue to appear on the monthly reports until such time as MARE receives notice that the child or children are no longer available for adoption.

What Does All This Mean?

Hopefully, implementing this process will have several positive outcomes:

By only receiving inquiries from studied and approved families, children’s workers may have more time to investigate appropriate families, rather than spending time fielding phone calls from families who either have not yet begun the adoption process and/or families that may not be appropriate for a particular child.
Families will feel empowered to take control of their adoption process, by inquiring about children in whom they are interested, instead of waiting for their workers to inquire on their behalf.
Family’s workers will be able to let their families have more control of their adoption process, and may potentially develop stronger relationships with the children’s workers.
The MARE office will be able to coordinate, track and follow up on the progress of each inquiry. We will also be able to determine the success of this project by establishing exactly how many families are interested in specific children. We will also be able to provide FIA with statistics on those measures.

If this process goes smoothly (and we don’t doubt there will be bumps, perhaps evens potholes, along the road!), the next phase of this project will be to change over the MARE photolisting book itself. While we are interested in moving forward with this process, we must be certain it is what is best for Michigan’s waiting children.

If you have any questions, or need further clarification about this process, please do not hesitate to contact Nancy Berger at (517) 783-6273 or email her at nberger@mare.org

We Value Your Feedback!

When families inquire about children using the online form, we ask them to provide certain information. All those who inquire must provide the following:

Name (if more than one adult, we ask they provide both names)
Street address, city, state and zip code
Whether they have a completed homestudy/Family Assessment, and the date it was completed
Whether they are a licensed foster family, and if so, the date they were licensed.
Their worker’s name, agency name, mailing address and phone number.
The names and C-numbers of the child or children they are interested in.

We also ask families to provide optional information, including:

Their gender(s)
Their age(s)
Their occupation(s)
Their religious preference(s), if any
Their race/ethnicity
Their marital status
Others who may live in the home (birth/foster/adopted children, relatives, exchange students, pets, etc.)
Any other information they feel is relevant.

This information is forwarded to the child’s worker, as well as the family’s worker (for confirmation) and the family themselves.

Please take a moment to look over the information we are requesting, and let us know if there is anything you feel (1) needs to be added to the list of information requested or (2) isn’t important for families to provide. This will help us better serve children’s workers, by providing them only with the information they feel is relevant and necessary.