October 26, 2011
Evaluation finds recruitment approach nearly doubles likelihood of adoption from foster care
For the last five years, Child Trends has conducted a multi-state, experimental design evaluation of the Wendy's Wonderful Kids (WWK) recruitment approach, sponsored by the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption and focused exclusively on children in foster care. The evaluation results are being released today by the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption and Child Trends.
In 2010, more than 107,000 children in foster care were waiting to be adopted. That same year, fewer than half that number were adopted, and they tended to be, primarily, the very young children under the age of 12. Older children and those with special needs were less likely to be adopted. The five-year study, conducted by Child Trends, found children served by a child-focused recruitment model experienced substantially higher rates of adoption than children not served by this model, and that the approach is even more effective for older children and those with mental health disorders.
The child-focused recruitment model is used by DTFA's signature program, Wendy's Wonderful Kids (WWK), which provides local adoption agencies with grants to hire dedicated adoption recruiters who spend 100 percent of their job focused on finding waiting children forever homes.
Child Trends' evaluation of the child-focused recruitment model found several promising results:
- Children in foster care served by Wendy's Wonderful Kids are 1.7 times more likely to be adopted than those not served by WWK.
- For older children, the impact of WWK is even greater, with the likelihood of adoption up to three times higher than for children not served by WWK.
- For children with mental health disorders served by WWK are three times more likely to be adopted than those not served by WWK.
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