Adoption Timeliness Measures Explained
The Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) stresses timely decision-making for children and families and establishes circumstances under which states can move more quickly to permanency for children in foster care. Courts are required to conduct a permanency hearing for each child in foster care at least every 12 months for the purpose of determining the child’s permanency plan. Courts are also required to determine whether the child welfare agency has made reasonable efforts to ensure the agency is taking steps necessary to finalize the permanent plan for the child, including overseeing the appropriateness of the child’s placement. Finally, ASFA requires the child welfare agency to file a petition to terminate parental rights (TPR) of any child who has been in foster care for 15 of the most recent 22 months, is abandoned, or whose parent(s) have committed certain egregious acts. Exceptions to this “15 of 22 rule” include when the child is being cared for by a relative; when the agency has documented a compelling reason why filing a TPR petition would not be in the child’s best interests; or when the agency has not provided the family with services consistent with reasonable efforts to reunify.
For a case involving an Indian child, the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) creates exclusive Tribal jurisdiction over all Indian child custody proceedings -- including child dependency, termination of parental rights, and adoption -- when requested by the Tribe, parent, or Indian custodian. ICWA also requires that Indian children are placed in foster or adoptive homes that reflect Indian culture.
Timeliness to adoption generally is measured by the time that lapses between the date the court terminated parental rights and the date the court issued the final adoption order. This measure provides you with the narrowest view of the time it takes to secure a child legally in a new permanent family. Practices affecting this timeline include procedural tasks such as preparing the petition for adoption and obtaining a final hearing date. This metric is also impacted by the time it takes the agency to identify a prospective adoptive family for a child and by delays associated with appeals from the TPR order.
Other process measures can help you understand more about the timeliness of adoption in your jurisdiction.
The time from the child’s removal from home and placement in foster care to the time the TPR petition is filed gives you a broad perspective on how long it takes for a dependency case to reach the final stage of TPR. Practices affecting this measure include delays in scheduling and conducting TPR trials. Evidentiary challenges in individual cases and reluctance to pursue expedited permanency paths such as the “15 of 22 month rule” also impact this timeline.
The length of time between the change in the child’s permanency goal to adoption and the filing of the TPR petition provides insights on the agency’s efforts to finalize the child’s permanency plan, including by recruiting adoptive families and ensuring the child is in an appropriate placement and receiving individualized and adequate services.
Finally, the length of time between the filing of the TPR petition and the court entering its TPR order can tell you something about court processes that may result in delays in scheduling and conducting TPR trials, evidentiary challenges in particular cases, challenges in locating and serving parents, and the court culture regarding proceeding to TPR with or without an adoptive resource in place.
These measures will not tell you everything you need to know about adoption timeliness but they offer a good starting place for initial understanding, reflection, and further exploration.
