Overview

In attempting to provide the most complete data currently available, Child Welfare Information Gateway believes it necessary to explain the limits of the data now available.

• The most comprehensive data was gathered by the Federally-funded National Center for Social Statistics from 1957 through 1975, when States voluntarily reported on all finalized adoptions.
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• With the dissolution of the NCSS, only limited statistical information is regularly available. With funding from the Children's Bureau's Adoption Information Improvement Project, Victor Flango and Carol Flango at the National Center for State Courts in Williamsburg, Virginia conducted the most recent complete review of court records, bureaus of vital statistics, and social services agencies. Their findings were published between 1990 and 1995, and serve as the most recent complete picture of adoption in the U.S.
• Since 1980, the American Public Human Services Association (APHSA) [formerly American Public Welfare Association (APWA)] has collected information on the foster care system through the Voluntary Cooperative Information System (VCIS). While this effort is continuing, data is submitted by States on a voluntary basis, leading to incomplete information compared under inconsistent data definitions.
• The journal "The Future of Children: Adoption," published by the Center for the Future of Children: Adoption of the Packard Foundation in Los Altos, California, focused its Spring 1993 issue on adoption. An article by Kathy Stolley, "Statistics on Adoption in the United States," provides an excellent overview of the background and future of adoption data.
• With the passage of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, there is a renewed effort to improve the data available about adoption. Under the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS), States are required to collect case-specific data on all children in foster care for whom the State child welfare agency has responsibility for placement, care or supervision, regardless of eligibility for Title IV-E. Further, States are required to collect data on all adopted children who were placed by the State child welfare agency or by private agencies under contract with the public child welfare agency. States are encouraged to report other adoptions that are finalized in the State. For more information about AFCARS, see the Children's Bureau, Administration for Children and Families Website at http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/systems/index.htm#afcars.
• Most new statistical information about adoption and related areas is being gathered and analyzed by private organizations, through private surveys and research. Such organizations include the Alan Guttmacher Institute, ChildTrends, APHSA (formerly APWA), and the Child Welfare Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley. Some information is provided through the analysis of extensive governmental surveys not focused on adoption, such as the National Survey of Family Growth, the National Survey of Families and Households, and the National Health Interview Survey. These Surveys, when viewed through the lens of adoption, give current, reliable statistical information on areas such as pregnancy and infertility rates, numbers of families adopting or considering adopting, and profiles of adoptive families.

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