July/August 2011Vol. 12, No. 6How AdoptUSKids Can Help Your Agency With Interjurisdictional Placements

A service of the Children's Bureau, AdoptUSKids is in its ninth year of operation. The mission of AdoptUSKids is two-fold: to raise public awareness about the need for foster and adoptive families for children in the public child welfare system and to assist U.S. States, territories, and Tribes to recruit and retain foster and adoptive families and connect them with children within and across jurisdictional boundaries. Since October 2002, more than 30,000 waiting children have been photolisted on the AdoptUSKids website. Of those children, nearly 16,000 have been placed with adoptive families, many of them across county, State, and international lines.

Among the many services provided by AdoptUSKids, two in particular provide invaluable support to child welfare agencies for the placement of children across borders. Those two services are its photolisting website and training and technical assistance.

Find Hundreds of Families in Seconds for Waiting Children
With a simple click of a button on the AdoptUSKids website, child welfare agencies can find hundreds of possible matches of home studied, licensed families for children on their caseload. The feature is part of the website's Find a Family tool available for free to agencies registered with AdoptUSKids photolisting services. The tool searches through our database of more than 4,000 active profiles of families and matches them to the needs and criteria of a child or sibling group.

Watch a short video demonstration of the tool at http://video.adoptuskids.org/v/training/findafamily.swf (Flash - 5:30 minutes) to find out more about this service and how both public and private child welfare agencies can register for free on the AdoptUSKids website at http://adoptuskids.org/admin/OrganizationRegistration.aspx?r=cbx.

Get Free Training and Technical Assistance on Interjurisdictional Placements
The National Resource Center for Recruitment and Retention of Foster and Adoptive Parents (NRCRRFAP) at AdoptUSKids provides free training and technical assistance on interjurisdictional placements, as well as materials to support agencies' ability to facilitate interjurisdictional placements. The center will soon release a set of capacity-building materials to help jurisdictions build worker knowledge and skills and sustainable infrastructures that support interjurisdictional placements.

To find out more about the center's resources:

• View the video Beyond Borders: Achieving Child Permanence Across Geographic Boundaries at http://adoptuskids.org/professionalResourceCenter/interjurisdictionalResources.aspx?r=cbx.
• Download the NRC's Interstate Compact for the Placement of Children (ICPC) Checklists at http://adoptuskids.org/resourceCenter/atcPublications.aspx?r=cbx#interstat. 
• Learn about free training and technical assistance at http://adoptuskids.org/professionalResourceCenter/aboutTTA.aspx?r=cbx.

If you have any questions about any the above services and how to access them, contact AdoptUSKids at 888.200.4005 or professionals@adoptuskids.org.

Contributed by Vanessa Casavant of AdoptUSKids