Child Welfare History
Foster Care to
Adoption History
Tensions Throughout Child Welfare
History
These tensions include:
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parents’ rights vs children’s needs
saving children/youth vs supporting families
federal vs state vs local responsibility
public vs voluntary financing and service
provision
Child Welfare History
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developmental vs protective services
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in-home vs foster family vs institutional care
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appropriate boundaries between the child welfare,
family service, juvenile justice, mental health, domestic
violence, substance abuse and mental retardation
systems
Child Welfare History
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Individualized modes of interventions vs
uniform standards and treatment, i.e., evidence
based practices
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Formal specialized professional services vs
informal, natural helping networks
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social costs vs benefits of providing varying
levels of care
Child Welfare History
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All of these issues appear and reappear in the
major historical documents on the American
child welfare system.
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The one theme that never disappears is the
search for a panacea, a solution to the problems
of children and youth whose parents are unable
to provide adequate care.
Child Welfare History 17th & 18th Centuries
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Early American settlers were preoccupied with issues of
freedom and survival for themselves and their new country.
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The demands of exploring, settling, and cultivating vast
expanses of land were enormous, and because of the small size
of the population, contributing members of society were at a
premium.
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The family was the basic economic unit, and all members were
expected to contribute to the work of the household.
Child Welfare History
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The concept of childhood, as it is currently
understood, was unknown except for very young
children.
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Although there was a high birthrate, approximately
two-thirds of all children died before the age of four.
Those who lived past this age were expected to start
contributing labor as soon as possible by helping with
household and farming chores, caring for younger
siblings, and so forth.
Child Welfare History
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Children moved quickly from infant status to serving
essential economic functions for their families.
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Children were perceived as a scarce and valued
resource for the nation, but little attention was paid
to individual differences or needs, and the concept of
children’s rights was nonexistent.
Child Welfare History
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Although there was no child welfare system as
such in those early days, two groups of children
were presumed to require attention from the
public authorities, one viewed as deserving, one
as not deserving
orphans
children of paupers
Child Welfare History
Because of the high maternal mortality rates and high adult male death
rates caused by the vicissitudes of life in the new world, large numbers
of children were orphaned at a relatively young age and required
special provisions for their care.
Children of paupers were also assumed to require special care because
of the high value placed on work and self-sufficiency and the
concomitant fear that these children would acquire the “bad habits” of
their parents if they were not taught a skill and good working habits at
an early age.
Parents who could not provide adequately for their children were
deprived of the right to plan for their children and were socially
condemned.
Child Welfare History
Children and dependent adults were treated alike and were
generally handled in one of four ways:
1. Outdoor relief, a public assistance program for poor
families and children consisting of a meager dole paid
by the local community to maintain families in their
own homes
2. Farming-out, a system whereby individuals or groups
of paupers were auctioned off to citizens who agreed
to maintain the paupers in their homes for a contracted
fee
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Child Welfare History
3. Almshouses or poorhouses established and
administered by public authorities in large urban
areas (or the care of destitute children and
adults
4. Indenture, a plan for apprenticing children to
households where they would be cared for and
taught a trade, in return for which they owed
loyalty, obedience, and labor until the costs of
Child Welfare History
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In addition to these provisions under the public authorities, dependent
children were cared for by a range of informal provisions arranged
through relatives, neighbors, or church officials.
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A few private institutions for orphans were also established during this
early colonial period. The first such orphanage in the United States
was the Ursuline Convent, founded in New Orleans in 1727 under the
auspices of Louis XV of France.
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Prior to 1800 most dependent children were cared for in almshouses
and/or by indenture until the age of eight or nine, and then they were
indentured until they reached majority.
Child Welfare History
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Thus, the social provisions for dependent children
during the first two centuries of American history can
be characterized as meager arrangements made on a
reluctant, begrudging basis to guarantee a minimal level
of subsistence.
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The arrangements were designed to insure that children
were taught the values of industriousness and hard
work and received a strict religious upbringing.
Provisions were made at the lowest cost possible for
the local community, in part because of the widespread
concern that indolence and depravity not be rewarded.
Child Welfare History
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Parents who were unable to provide for their children were
thought to have abrogated their parental rights, and children
were perceived primarily as property that could be disposed of
according to the will of their owners—parents, masters, and/or
public authorities who assumed the costs of their care.
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The goal was to make provisions for dependent children that
would best serve the interests of the community, not the
individual child.
Nineteenth Century
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Massive social changes occurred in the United States during the
nineteenth century, all of which influenced the nature of
provisions for dependent children. The importation of large
numbers of slaves and the eventual abolition of slavery first
reduced the number of requests for indentured white children
and later created opposition to a form of care for white children
that was no longer permitted for blacks.
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The emergence of a bourgeois class of families in which the
labor of children and wives was not required at home permitted
upper-income citizens to turn their attention to the educational
and developmental needs of their own children as well as the
orphaned, poor, and delinquent.
Nineteenth Century
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The large-scale economic growth of the country after the Civil
War helped to expand the tax base and to free funds for the
development of private philanthropies aimed at improving the
lives of the poor. The massive wave of immigrants from
countries other than England created a large pool of needy
children, primarily Catholic and Jewish, from diverse cultural
backgrounds.
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Finally, the Industrial Revolution changed the entire economic
and social fabric of the nation. New industry required different,
more dangerous types of labor from parents and youth and
created a new set of environmental hazards and problems for
low-income families.
Rise of Institutions
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Perhaps the most significant change in the pattern of care for
dependent children during the early nineteenth century was
the dramatic increase in the number of orphanages, especially
during the I830s.
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These facilities were established under public, voluntary, and
sectarian auspices and were designed to care for children
whose parents were unable to provide adequately for them, as
well as for true orphans.
Rise of Institutions
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A major expansion in almshouse care occurred in the years
succeeding the publication of these reports. But what was not
foreseen by the early advocates of the use of almshouses were
the physical and social risks to children posed by housing them
with all classes of dependent adults. Although facilities in
some of the larger cities established separate quarters for
children, most were mixed almshouses caring for young
children, “derelicts,” the insane, the sick, the blind, the deaf,
the retarded, the delinquent, and the poor alike.
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By mid-century, investigations of the living conditions of
children in poorhouses had started, creating strong pressure
for the development of alternative methods of care.
Rise of Institutions
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State after state issued similar reports, characterizing
almshouses as symbols of human wretchedness and political
corruption and calling for special provisions for the care of
young children in orphanages under public or private auspices.
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But reform came slowly, in part because public funds had
been invested in the poorhouses and in part because there
were no readily available alternatives for the large number of
children housed in these facilities.
Rise of Institutions
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Black dependent children who were not sold as slaves were cared for
primarily in the local almshouses. They were explicitly excluded from most
of the private orphanages established prior to the Civil War. Consequently,
several separate facilities for black children were founded during this
period, the first of which was the Philadelphia Association for the Care of
Colored Children established by the Society of Friends in 1822.
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To insure the survival of these facilities, their founders attempted to
separate the orphanages from the abolitionist movement, with which they
were identified. However, the shelter in Philadelphia was burned by a white
mob in 1838 and the Colored Orphan Asylum in New York was set on fire
during the Draft Riot of 1863.
The Beginnings of Foster Care
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With the recognition of the condition of children cared for in
mixed almshouses, the stage was set for a number of reform
efforts. One such effort began in 1853 with the founding of
the Children’s Aid Society in New York by Charles Loring
Brace. By the end of the century, Children’s Aid Societies had
been established in most of the other major eastern cities.
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Brace was strongly committed to the idea that the best way to
save poor children from the evils of urban life was to place
them in Christian homes in the country, where they would
receive a solid moral training and learn good work habits.
Orphan Trains
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Between 1854 and 1929 100,000-200,000
children were placed in new families via the
Orphan Trains.
http://www.orphantraindepot.com
•Children were taken in small groups of 10 to 40,
under the supervision of at least one adult, and
traveled on trains to selected stops along the way,
where they were taken by families in that area.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/orphan/teachers.html
The Beginnings of Foster Care
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Consequently, Loring Brace recruited large numbers of free foster homes
in the Midwest and upper New York State and sent trainloads of children
to these localities By 1879 the Children’s Aid Society in New York City
had sent 40,000 homeless destitute children to homes in the country
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A somewhat parallel development was the establishment of the Children’s
Home Society movement. These societies were statewide child-placing
agencies under Protestant auspices, also designed to provide free foster
homes for dependent children. The first such society was established in
Illinois in 1883. By 1916 there were thirty-six Children’s Home Societies
located primarily in Midwestern and southern states .
The Expansion of Services
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Until the last quarter of the nineteenth century state
intervention in a child’s life occurred, for the most
part, only when the child threatened the social order.
Dominant members of society feared that dependent
children would grow up without the moral guidance
and education necessary to enable them to become
productive members of society. Children violating the
law posed not only an immediate threat but also the
fear that, without intervention, they would grow up
to be adult criminals.
The Expansion of Services
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During the latter part of the last century the focus of
concern began to change. Voluntary organizations
founded during this period recognized that families
had an obligation to provide for their children’s basic
needs. If they did not, it was argued, society had the
right and obligation to intervene. Thus, the concept
of minimal social standards for child rearing was
introduced.
The Expansion of Services
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The founding of the New York Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Children in 1874
signaled the beginning of this broader concept
of societal intervention on the child’s behalf.
Similar societies were quickly established in
other areas of the country, and by 1900 there
were more than 250 such agencies the New
York society was established in the wake of
the notorious case of “little Mary Ellen”.
The Expansion of Services
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A friendly visitor, named Etta Wheeler from
the child’s neighborhood was horrified by the
abusive treatment the child had received from
her caretaker and sought help from several
child welfare institutions to no avail. Finally
she turned to Henry Bergh, president of the
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals, who promptly brought the case to
court, requesting that the child be removed
from her caretaker immediately.
Photo of Mary Ellen Wilson
The Expansion of Services
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Newspaper accounts of the early meetings of the
society indicate that the founders saw their primary
function as prosecuting parents, not providing direct
services to parents or children; in fact, the society was
denied tax-exempt status by the State of New York in
1900 because its primary purpose was defined as law
enforcement, not the administration of charity.
However, this agency as well as the other early child
protection societies quickly turned their interests to
all forms of child neglect and exploitation, not
confining their activities merely to the prevention of
physical abuse of children in their own homes.
The Expansion of Services
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The establishment of the Charity
Organization Society movement, starting in
1877, also contributed to the expansion of
services to children. They were opposed to
monetary giving and to any public sector
involvement in the relief of destitution;
government was not to be trusted to provide a
“dole,” which would encourage laziness and
moral decay.
The Expansion of Services
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In order to accomplish this mission, the societies
enlisted the aid of “friendly visitors”—the forerunner
of the modern social worker—whose responsibilities
were to seek out the poor, investigate their need, and
certify them as worthy for private help. They were to
provide a role model, advice, and moral instruction to
the poor in order that they could rid themselves of
poverty. These ideas had a profound influence on the
orientation of the early social workers in the family
service field.
The Expansion of Services
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However, what the friendly visitors discovered was
that much poverty was the result of societal forces far
beyond the individual’s control. Many children were
destitute not because their parents were lazy or
immoral, but because jobs were not available,
breadwinners were incapacitated by industrial
accidents, or parents had died. While the friendly
visitors continued to minister to the poor on a caseby-case basis, their recognition of the social roots of
poverty converged with the philosophy underlying
the establishment of the first settlement houses at the
end of the nineteenth century.
The Expansion of Services
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The settlement house movement was a middle-class
movement designed to humanize the cities. It emphasized
total life involvement, decentralization, experimental modes of
intervention, and learning by doing. Their programs included
“developmental” services such as language classes, day-care
centers, playgrounds, family life education, and so forth.
Convinced of the worth of the individuals and immigrant
groups they served and the importance of cultural pluralism in
America, they saw the causes of many social problems in the
environment and sought regulations to improve them.
20th Century Time Line
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1909 – First White House Conference on Children
1912 – Creation of US Children’s Bureau
1935 - Social Security Act, Title IV, ADC; and Title V,
Child Welfare Services Program
1961 – Social Security Amendment, AFDC – Foster Care
1962 – Social Security Amendment (75%-25% match for
funding social services for current, former, and potential
welfare recipients)
1967 – Social Security Amendments
Title IVB (Child Welfare Services Program, originally
authorized under Title V)
20th Century Time Line
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1974 – Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, P.L. 93-247
(Amended in 1978, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2003)
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1975 – Title XX of the Social Security Act
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1978 – Indian Child Welfare Act
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1980 – Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act, P.L. 96-272
(Title IVE)
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1993 - Family Preservation and Support Services Program
20th to 21st Century Time Line
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1994 – Multiethnic Placement Act
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1996 - Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunities Act ,
P.L. 104-193
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1997 – Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA), P.L. 105-89
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1999 – Chaffee Foster Care Independence Act
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2000 – Child Abuse Prevention and Enforcement Act
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2001 – Promoting Safe and Stable Families Amendment
21st Century Themes
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Safety
Permanency Goal Setting
Well-Being
CFSR Reviews in States
Foster Parents Adopting Children
Adoption Incentives
Adoption Opportunities
Adoption Openness
Youth Permanency
Cultural Competency
Family Based Services
Community Based Services
Array of Children, Youth and
Family Services
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In Home Services
Out-of-Home Services
Child Welfare Services
In Home Services
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Services designed to ensure that children and youth
remain safe in their home and prevent them from
entering the foster care system: Services to preserve
families
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Family Support/Preservation Services: counseling,
parent skills training, substance abuse treatment,
recreational services, linkages to community-based
resources
Out-of-Home Services
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Driven by ASFA 1997 legislation
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Strong emphasis on safety, permanency, and well-being,
especially permanency
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Time limited with ASFA; 15 of last 22 months in
placement
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Reunify with family, find other permanent arrangement
or terminate parental rights and free for adoption
Trial andFamily
ErrorFoster Care
Orphanages and
Boarding schools
Tennessee Preparatory School for Dependent Children
Out-of-Home Services
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Community-based services in family’s own
neighborhood
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Least restrictive placement setting
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Frequent visitation to family
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Intensive work with family, building on strengths and
resources
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Respect for culture and traditions of the family
Out-of-Home Services
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Kinship Foster Care: informal and formal
Family Foster Boarding Homes
Therapeutic Foster Boarding Homes
Agency Operated Boarding Homes (SILP)
Group Homes
DRC/RTC (campus programs)
RTF
Child Welfare Services
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Abuse and Neglect Investigations
Independent Living Services –Chaffee Act
Adoption
Legal Services
Parent and Children’s Rights
Child Performer Permits
Adoption History Time Line
Prior to 1851, adoption was an informal process
1851, Massachusetts passed the first modern adoption
law, recognizing adoption as a social and legal operation
based on child welfare rather than adult interests.
Historians consider the 1851 Adoption of Children Act an
important turning point because it directed judges to
ensure that adoption decrees were “fit and proper.” How
this determination was to be made was left entirely to
judicial discretion.
Adoption History Time Line
1868, Massachusetts Board of State
Charities began paying for children to
board in private family homes: in 1869, an
agent was appointed to visit children in
their homes. This was the beginning of
placing-out, a movement to care for
children in families rather than
institutions.
Adoption History Time Line
1872 New York State Charities Aid
Association was organized. It was one of
the first organizations in the country to
establish a specialized child-placement
program, in 1898. By 1922, homes for more
than 3300 children had been found. The
first major outcome study, How Foster
Children Turn Out (1924), was based on
the work of this agency.
Adoption History Time Line
1891, Michigan was the first state to
require that “the [the judge] shall be
satisfied as to the good moral character,
and the ability to support and educate
such child, and of the suitableness of the
home, or the person or persons adopting
such child.”
Adoption History Time Line
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1910-1930, The first specialized adoption agencies were founded, including
the Spence Alumni Society, the Free Synagogue Child Adoption Committee,
the Alice Chapin Nursery (all in New York) and the Cradle in Evanston,
Illinois.
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1912-1921, Baby farming, commercial maternity homes, and adoption ad
investigations took place in Boston, New York, Baltimore, Chicago, and
other cities.
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1916, Lewis Terman's revision of the Binet scale popularized the
intelligence quotient, or I.Q. Worries about the “feeble-minded” mentality
of children available for adoption, and trends toward measuring their mental
potential as one part of the adoption process, usually with mental tests,
grew out of the eugenics movement in the early part of the century.
Adoption History Time Line
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1917, Minnesota passed first law mandating social investigation of all
adoptions (including home studies) and providing for the confidentiality of
adoption records.
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1919, The Russell Sage Foundation published the first professional childplacing manual; U.S. Children's Bureau set minimum standards for childplacing; Jessie Taft authored an early manifesto for therapeutic adoption,
“Relation of Personality Study to Child Placing.”
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1919-1929, The first empirical field studies of adoption gathered basic
information about how many adoptions were taking place, of whom, and by
whom.
Adoption History Time Line
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1934, The state of Iowa began administering mental tests to all children
placed for adoption in hopes of preventing the unwitting adoption of
retarded children (called “feeble-minded” at the time). This policy inspired
nature-nurture studies at the Iowa Child Welfare Station that eventually
served to challenge hereditarian orthodoxies and promote policies of early
family placement.
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1935, Social Security Act included provision for aid to dependent children,
crippled children's programs, and child welfare, which eventually led to a
dramatic expansion of foster care; American Youth Congress issued “The
Declaration of the Rights of American Youth”; Justine Wise Polier was
appointed to head the Domestic Relations Court of Manhattan. She became
an important early critic of matching in adoption.
Adoption History Time Line
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1937-1938, First Child Welfare League of America initiative that
distinguished minimum standards for permanent (adoptive) and temporary
(foster) placements.
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1939, Valentine P. Wasson published The Chosen Baby, a landmark in the
literature on telling children about their adopted status.
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1944, In Prince v. Massachusetts, a case involving Jehovah's Witnesses, the
U.S. Supreme Court upheld the state's power as parens patriae to restrict
parental control in order to guard “the general interest in youth's well
being.”
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1948, The first recorded transracial adoption of an African-American child
by white parents took place in Minnesota.
Adoption History Time Line
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1949, New York was the first state to pass a law against black market
adoptions, which proved unenforceable in practice.
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1953, Uniform Adoption Act first proposed. Few states ever adopted it; Jean
Paton founded Orphan Voyage, the first adoptee search support network.
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1953-1954, Child Welfare League of America conducted nationwide survey
of adoption agency practices.
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1953-1958, The first nationally coordinated effort to locate adoptive homes
for African American children, the National Urban League Foster Care and
Adoptions Project.
Adoption History Time Line
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1954, Helen Doss published The Family Nobody Wanted; Jean Paton
published The Adopted Break Silence, the first book to offer a variety of
first-person adoption narratives and promote the notion that adoptees had a
distinctive identity.
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1955, Child Welfare League of America national conference on adoption in
Chicago announced that the era of special needs adoption had arrived;
Congressional inquiry into interstate and black market adoptions. Bertha
and Harry Holt adopted eight Korean War orphans after a special act of
Congress allowed them to do so; Pearl S. Buck accused social workers and
religious institutions of sustaining the black market and preventing the
adoption of children in order to preserve their jobs; Adopt-A-Child founded
by the National Urban League and fourteen New York agencies to promote
African-American adoptions.
Adoption History Time Line
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1957, International Conference on Intercountry Adoptions issued report on
problems of international adoptions; U.S. adoption agencies sponsored
legislation to prohibit or control proxy adoptions.
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1958, Child Welfare League of America published Standards of Adoption
Service (revised in 1968, 1973, 1978, 1988, 2000); Indian Adoption Project
began.
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1959, UN Assembly adopted Declaration of the Rights of the Child,
endorsed in 1960 by Golden Anniversary White House Conference on
Children and Youth.
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1961, The Immigration and Nationality Act incorporated, for the first time,
provisions for the international adoption of foreign-born children by U.S.
citizens.
Adoption History Time Line
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1960, Psychiatrist Marshall Schechter published a study claiming that
adopted children were 100 times more likely than their non-adopted
counterparts to show up in clinical populations. This sparked a vigorous
debate about whether adoptive kinship was itself a risk factor for mental
disturbance and illness and inspired a new round of studies into the
psychopathology of adoption.
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1962-1965, Special conference on child abuse, led by Katherine Oettinger,
chief of the Children's Bureau, generated proposals for new laws requiring
doctors to notify law enforcement and most states adopted such legislation.
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1963, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
established as part of the National Institutes of Health; U.S. Children's
Bureau moved from Social Security Administration to Welfare
Administration.
Adoption History Time Line
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1964, H. David Kirk published Shared Fate: A Theory of Adoption and
Mental Health, the first book to make adoption a serious issue in the
sociological literature on family life and mental health.
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1965, The Los Angeles County Bureau of Adoptions launched the first
organized program of single parent adoptions in order to locate homes for
hard-to-place children with special needs.
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1966, The National Adoption Resource Exchange, later renamed the
Adoption Resource Exchange of North America (ARENA), was established
as an outgrowth of the Indian Adoption Project.
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1969, President Nixon created the Office of Child Development in HEW to
coordinate and administer Head Start and U.S. Children's Bureau functions.
Adoption History Time Line
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1970, Adoptions reached their century-long statistical peak at approximately
175,000 per year. Almost 80 percent of the total were arranged by agencies.
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1971, Florence Fisher founded the Adoptees Liberty Movement Association
“to abolish the existing practice of sealed records” and advocate for
“opening of records to any adopted person over eighteen who wants, for any
reason, to see them.”
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1972, National Association of Black Social Workers opposed transracial
adoptions; Stanley v. Illinois substantially increased the rights of unwed
fathers in adoption by requiring informed consent and proof of parental
unfitness prior to termination of parental rights.
Adoption History Time Line
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1973, Roe v. Wade legalized abortion; Beyond the Best Interests of the Child
articulated the influential concept of “psychological parent,” which
prioritized continuity of nurture and speedy and permanent decisions in
legal proceedings related to child placement and adoption.
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1976, Concerned United Birthparents founded
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1978, Indian Child Welfare Act passed by Congress.
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1980, Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act offered significant funding
to states that supported subsidy programs for special needs adoptions and
devoted resources to family preservation, reunification, and the prevention
of abuse, neglect, and child removal.
Adoption History Time Line
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1980, Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act offered significant funding
to states that supported subsidy programs for special needs adoptions and
devoted resources to family preservation, reunification, and the prevention
of abuse, neglect, and child removal.
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1989, UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
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1993, Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and Co-operation in
respect to Intercountry Adoption
Adoption History Time Line
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1994, Multiethnic Placement Act was the first federal law to concern itself
with race in adoption. It prohibited agencies receiving federal funds from
denying transracial adoptions on the sole basis of race, but permitted the
use of race as one factor, among others, in foster and adoptive placements.
A 1996 revision to this law, the Inter-Ethnic Adoption Amendment, made it
impermissible to employ race at all.
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1996, Bastard Nation founded. Its mission statement promoted “the full
human and civil rights of adult adopted persons,” including access to
sealed records.
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1997, Adoption and Safe Families Act stressed permanency planning for
children and youth.
Adoption History Time Line
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1998, Oregon voters passed Ballot Measure 58, allowing adult adopted
persons access to original birth certificates. This legal blow to
confidentiality and sealed records was stalled by legal challenges to the
measure's constitutionality, which eventually failed. The measure has been
in effect in Oregon since June 2000.
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2000, The Child Citizenship Act of 2000 allowed foreign-born adopted
persons to become automatic American citizens when they entered the
United States, eliminating the legal burden of naturalization for
international adoptions; Census 2000 included “adopted son/daughter” as a
kinship category for the first time in U.S. history.
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http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~adoption/