What Couples who Adopt Children from Child Welfare Want Professionals to Know about Supporting Their Marriages

Abstract

This article provides suggestions for supporting the marriages of couples who adopt children from the child welfare system. These suggestions emerged from qualitative data obtained from 22 spouses in 4 focus groups. Data reveal that couples want professionals to address the impact of adoption on the marital relationship prior to placement of children, to facilitate contact among adoptive couples that focuses on couple relationships in addition to parenting issues after children have been placed, and to actively support the marital relationship in postplacement/ postadoption services even when children's behaviors or needs constitute the presenting problem. Taken together, results indicate that it is appropriate for a broad range of professionals to address the couple relationship throughout the adoption process. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE• Professionals can address the impact of adoption on the marital relationship In preplacement and postplacement phases of adoption.• Professionals can encourage adoptive couples to form social support networks that include other adoptive couples.A lthough researchers have generated valuable knowledge about adoption and about marital relationships in a family context, these bodies of literature are not often integrated. Therefore, despite deep concern for vulnerable children and families among child welfare practitioners and administrators, as well as related professionals, research that is applicable to practice is often fragmented and difficult to synthesize. Moreover, available research often reports and packages findings in ways that render the essence of client experience inaccessible to caring professionals, and offers few practical and specific suggestions to guide transactions between professionals and parents in the context of child welfare practice.This article represents an effort to aid professionals working in adoption services, family court, child welfare, clinical family social work, couple and family therapy, pastoral counseling, pédiatrie medicine, and related fields. It centers on the value of supporting the marriages of couples who adopt children from the child welfare system, which is an important, but often overlooked aspect of adoption from child welfare. To give direct voice to a sample of these couples, their experience and suggestions are presented in their own words, and implications for professional practice throughout the adoption process are summarized.

Is relationship and marriage education relevant and appropriate to child welfare?

“…That is, rather than reacting to problems after the fact, we argue that it is imperative to provide CWPs with basic RME knowledge, tools, and skills so they 1) can recognize opportunities to provide RME, 2) are ready and able, when needed, to help strengthen couple and/ or coparenting relationships, or 3) can understand when the situation better warrants a referral to FLE or counseling services. Recently, scholars have reinforced that integrating RME with services that CWPs provide may be especially desirable and beneficial to home visitation programs , foster and adoptive parents (Mooradian, Hock, Jackson, & Timm, 2011) and youth aging out of the foster care system (Antle, Johnson, Barbee, & Sullivan, 2009). …”

“…Indeed, in recent years, RME programs are being implemented at the individual level in schools, correctional facilities, domestic violence shelters, rehabilitation clinics, and other agencies that provide social services (Hawkins, 2012). Taken together, individuals, couples, and families in the child welfare system may be open to receiving RME, including foster youth (Antle et al, 2009) and adopting parents (Mooradian et al, 2011), and training CWPs in relationship principles and skills could be an ideal delivery system, as low-resource families may be less likely to attend group RME programs .…”

Training Child Welfare Professionals to Support Healthy Couple Relationships: Examining the Link to Training Transfer

“…Despite the need for and interest in RME (Mooradian et al, 2011;Sar et al, 2010), integrating RME into child welfare services remains a controversial matter because of the lack of awareness regarding the relevance and benefits of RME to child welfare as well as the perceived barriers inherent in implementing RME Schramm et al, 2013). As such, the development process began with identifying and exploring the problem (e.g., relevance of RME to child welfare clients, interest from and potential barriers to CWPs employing RME) in order to inform a well-reasoned theory of change that could be implemented and tested.…”

“…Antle, Frey, Sar, Barbee, and van Zyl (2010) have noted that strengthening couples and families could serve as both a primary prevention strategy for foster and kinship care providers whose relationship might be taxed following a placement of a child in their home, and as a secondary prevention strategy for families already in the child welfare system by strengthening the couple relationship and thus minimizing the negative spillover effects of couple conflict on children. Research has shown that, in addition to client interest (Mooradian, Hock, Jackson, & Timm, 2011), child welfare professionals (CWPs) believe that RME is both relevant and appropriate for the work they perform (Sar, Antle, Bledsoe, Barbee & van Zyl, 2010;Schramm, Futris, Galovan, & Allen, 2013) and that training can facilitate positive shifts in attitudes that could facilitate the integration of RME into child welfare programming . As the field of child welfare expands its focus to preventive services and includes trainings on ''controversial topics'' such as RME, it is critical that evaluation models assess the effectiveness of such trainings.…”

Post-Adoption Support Groups: Strategies for Addressing Marital Issues

“…In a qualitative study, Mooradian, Hock, Jackson, and Timm (2011) used a focus group approach to ask couples who had adopted children from the child welfare system about how professionals could support their marriages. The couples expressed a strong need to have interaction with other adoptive couples facing similar family situations.…”