Foster Care and Adoption
Foster care and public adoption agencies and the children they serve share a common goal: a stable, permanent, loving home for every child. Commonwealth Medicine’s Office of Foster Care and Adoption works to support that important objective by providing decision-makers with research and evaluation services to improve the lives of children in the public sector's care.
With a unique position within the academic environment of UMass Medical School, the Office of Foster Care and Adoption has the flexibility to bridge academics and research with practice, offering a distinctive approach to foster care and adoption education.
We have a proven record of delivering education and training programs for child welfare and allied professionals who work with children and families served by the foster care system, as well as families formed through adoption. Strategic Training to Enhance Permanency (STEPS), a program for child welfare professionals, is just one of the many comprehensive training programs we have developed and now conduct for both professionals and parents.
With the goal of helping children and families, our team disseminates knowledge about foster care and adoption policy and practice to policy makers and professionals nationwide, providing the followin
- Education and training programs for child welfare professionals, allied professionals, families, and medical and nursing students
- Quantitative and qualitative analysis of child welfare programs and policies to improve adoption and foster care services
- Specialized research initiatives, such as the annual Massachusetts adoption survey, which examines and addresses changing trends in adoption practices
- Quality improvement initiatives, such as needs-assessment, focus groups, and survey-based analyses
- Ongoing study of adoption outcomes and subsidies, foster care placement stability, and recruitment of adoptive families
- In-depth evaluations of foster care and adoption programs, ranging from foster-to-birth parent mentoring to clinical health screenings to facilitated mediation for child protection court cases