A new hope

While the focus of private adoptions is finding the right child to fit the requirements of a prospective family, public adoptions place more emphasis on finding the right family to fit the needs of each child.

This can be a difficult proposition, as many of the children available for public adoption have had a rough start in life.

“Our usual services are for children who’ve been placed in foster care [and the child welfare system],” said Craig Cassetta, supervisor of Butte County Adoption Services, a subset of the county’s Department of Employment and Social Services (DESS). “For one reason or another, the court has determined that they’re not able to live with the parents they were born to. After efforts have been made to return them home and those efforts are unsuccessful, our office helps identify an alternative plan.”

“Whenever child welfare gets involved, we’re looking at and investigating allegations of a whole variety of abuse categories including general neglect, severe neglect, physical and sexual abuse and exploitation,” said DESS Assistant Director Shelby Boston, adding that general neglect is the most common factor, in Butte County and nationwide.

“If we become involved, and if they’re taken from the home, the abuse or neglect is pretty significant,” she said.

To facilitate the best possible matches, prospective parents must undergo a home study assessment, complete several training courses, and obtain a foster care license. On the other end, adoption specialists are sent to meet with the children in their current foster homes to interview them and gather all available birth, medical and developmental records. If the department recommends adoption, it must be approved by the court.

Cassetta said his department tries to follow a federal recommendation of having children adopted into a home within two years of permanently entering the child welfare system, but the timeline can vary greatly due to the legal process and each child’s situation.

“There unfortunately aren’t as many families available for older youth, for example,” he said. “We might have to search much longer for a home for a teenager than we would for an infant.”

Cassetta said there are usually several families that have completed or are currently undergoing the process for adoption, and always a need for more.

Butte County Adoption Services is a relatively new agency. Public adoptions were formerly overseen by the California Department of Social Services, before the Budget Act of 2011—commonly known as “realignment”—called for those responsibilities to be shifted to county government. After a year-long transition period, the county office took over on Jan. 1, 2013.

The state agency still maintains a regional office in Chico, but it is responsible for adoptions in several Northern California counties that have not yet developed local services.

“The biggest benefit is with continuity of service within the department,” Boston said of the change. “We’re able to partner early on in each case because it’s all in-house, so the child welfare social worker and the adoption social worker can start working together at the beginning of each case to develop the best plan for that child.”

The county office has facilitated the finalization of 56 adoptions since it began, Boston said. Of that total, 13 were made during the new agency’s first participation in National Adoption Day, last Nov. 22, at the Butte County Superior Courthouse in Oroville.

Boston said Butte County Adoption Services provides post-adoption services to help new families overcome obstacles after placement and ensure new families stay together.

“We have professionals that provide some level of support and expertise to share with parents,” she said. “We don’t have an expectation that adoptive or foster parents will come in knowing everything to help support youth who’ve been abused or neglected.

“But obviously, we look for parents who are patient and open to learning how to best meet the needs of children who’ve dealt with those situations.”

In addition to in-house staff, Boston said the county contracts with private, nonprofit group Lilliput Children’s Services to bring “topic-driven” special speakers and trainers to the area. She offered a recent session to help parents better prepare to deal with the needs of children who’ve suffered trauma, for example.

“Research has shown that trauma has an impact on how a child’s brain develops,” she said. “So we want to ensure that adoptive and foster parents are knowledgeable about how to best work with the child to not trigger that trauma, and better understand how children might behave certain ways based on their life experiences up to that point.

“We want all of our adoptions to be successful and for these children to have no further disruptions,” Boston said. “We want them to stay in their new home with their adoptive families and live a normal, healthy, happy life.”