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 works to support that important objective by providing decision-makers with research and evaluation services to improve the lives of children in the public sectorÕs care.Through the Center for Health Policy and Research's Center for Adoption Research (CAR), we provide quantitative and qualitative analysis of child welfare programs and policies that will result in practical responses to improve adoption and foster care services. The goal of CAR is to share research and knowledge in key areas with policy-makers and health professionals to influence policies that will enhance the lives of children in adoptive and foster families. Areas of study include adoption outcomes and subsidies, foster care placement stability and recruitment of adoptive families.
CAR's program evaluation services further guide the policy-making process by conducting quality improvement initiatives such as needs assessment, focus groups and survey-based analyses. Our highly knowledgeable staff perform 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.
As the only university-based adoption research center at a public medical school, the Center for Adoption Research is uniquely positioned to leverage the resources and consultation of expert faculty at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Among our specialized research initiatives is the annual Massachusetts adoption survey, which we conduct each year to examine and address the changing trends in adoption practices.