WASHINGTON – After years of abuse and subsequent truancy, the state took Sinora Dabney away from her family in hopes of finding a stable foster home for her.
But Sinora’s chances of adoption were doomed from the outset — she was 13 when she entered the system and bounced to 13 different foster homes in her first three years. She finally “aged out” at age 21, without ever finding a permanent placement.
The problem, she says now, is that no one wanted to deal with a teenager who was “set in (her) ways.”
That has been the reality for most of the thousands of adolescents in Maryland’s foster care system, according to a Capital News Service analysis of the National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect.
It showed that just 13 of the state’s 3,590 foster kids age 15 and older were permanently placed in fiscal 1998. The number inched up to 30 adoptions from the 4,628 older teens in the state in fiscal 2000 — but it slipped back to 28 adoptions in 2002, according to preliminary figures from the state Department of Human Resources.
“We get fewer people coming to the door wanting older children,” said DHR adoptions manager Stephanie Pettaway. “Teenagers are challenging, they have their own thoughts and feelings.”
The number of teen adoptions has remained stubbornly low even as a “major push” by the state in recent years has led to record numbers of permanent placements for other foster children. Officials said 887 of the state’s 9,603 foster kids were adopted in fiscal 2001, and the number grew to 985 of the 9,436 in fiscal 2002.
But teens made up a tiny share of those cases. Pettaway said the issue for prospective parents is control: People want a child whose behavior can be molded and changed.
“If you asked me to take a kid home, and I had options, I would take a 5- year-old instead of a 15-year-old,” Pettaway said.
Psychologist Leonard Guedalia agreed that teens’ behavior can be an issue. Coping with an adopted adolescent can be difficult, he said, because “there is not a lot of emotional reward.”
“Teens are tough to deal with . . . and what (adoptive parents) are looking at is the personal emotional return on the time investment,” Guedalia said. “It’s a cold way to look at it, but when people look at where they put their energy, it’s very difficult to immerse oneself in an adolescent.
“You don’t have as many Kodak moments” with a teenager, he said.
Rockville psychologist Michael Stutz, who specializes in child and adolescent issues, said problems with attachment “are really huge” for teens in the foster care system.
“Their concept of love and intimacy is greatly affected because there is no caretaker who is a constant in their life,” Stutz said.
Guedalia said foster children, especially those who have been through multiple placements, may have internalized shame and may “feel flawed as a human being.”
“They find it difficult to trust and depend on people, to reach out. They have difficulty developing strong, intimate trusting connections with people,” he said.
The negative effects of long-term foster care have many local advocates pushing for more aggressive adoption strategies.
“Repetitive placements are clearly disruptive for schooling and other respects . . . a lack of support is a prescription for disaster,” said Sharon Rubinstein, a spokeswoman for Advocates for Children and Youth. The group advocates permanent placement, saying that reducing the number of home changes leads to healthier, more well-adjusted foster children.
A spokesman for the Coalition to Protect Maryland’s Children agreed.
“When children are in foster care more than six months, then the prospects of remaining in foster care grows exponentially from year to year,” said Jim McComb.
But mental health experts like Guedalia caution against pushing people too hard to adopt, especially to adopt a teenager.
“Parents adopting need to be in counseling . . . they need to work with someone to keep them ahead of the learning curve,” he said. “After the honeymoon period . . . the kids may start acting out.”
McComb agreed that the state needs to do more than just “getting them adopted and moving on,” it needs to support the families willing to adopt troubled teens.
“There are many of us that are confident that the state is not doing everything to support these adoptions,” he said. “When we are promoting the adoption of kids who have been traumatized by loss and neglect, the state needs to stand by and provide supportive services to those families.”
McComb called the lack of support “a classic example of the state not rising to the occasion.”
Sinora Dabney, who aged out of the system three years ago, was able to rise above the emotional turmoil that she said can be created by a long stay in the foster care system.
Dabney eventually settled with one family, from whom she now rents a room. She expects to graduate this spring from Morgan State University with a bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism, and has her sights set on graduate school. In the meantime, she is working as coordinator for the National Foster Youth Advisory Council for the Child Welfare League of America.
She said every case in the system is different, and that not all kids look for adoption. But she is convinced that, for most foster kids, permanency is the best goal.
“It’s very hard . . . to be put on this roller-coaster,” she said. “It almost makes these kids destined for failure.”
Pettaway agreed, and said the state is doing everything it can to improve adoption prospects for Maryland’s foster children.
“You have to have somebody” to call your family, she said.