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Familias Para Niños
Texas—Familias Para Niños
The Familias Para Niños project was a collaboration between two private adoption agencies - DePelchin Children's Center and Spaulding for Children in the Houston-Fort Bend counties of Texas. With funding from a Federal Adoption Opportunities grant, the project aimed to increase the number of Hispanic/Latino children placed for adoption from foster care.
Strategies. Familias Para Niños employed a number of strategies, including specialized media adoptive family recruitment campaigns; use of linguistically compatible staff; and postplacement supportive services to adoptive children, families, and extended families including support groups and information and referral.
Outcomes. The project exceeded all of its primary objectives. The key objective related to permanency was to place 67 Hispanic/Latino children in adoptive homes; 124 were actually placed, and 59 percent of these children were age 5 or older. The project received 1,651 responses to the media recruitment campaign (150 responses had been the objective). Of these, 196 families followed through to complete an adoption application and 53 Hispanic/Latino families were approved (50 had been the objective).
Lessons Learned. Recommendations based on the project's experiences and successes include the need for strong management support, culturally sensitive and properly translated tools and materials, bilingual staff, enough services for Spanish-speaking clients including Spanish PRIDE training (a foster/adoptive parent training curriculum), and expanded recruitment to include extended family as kinship adoptive placements.
More Information on Model Programs for Youth Permanency
Read more about this and other model programs for youth permanency in Model Programs for Youth Permanency (PDF - 236 KB) by M.J. Louisell, from the California Partnership for Youth Project.