67% of foster children are 9 years old or older

County expands adoption efforts
Older children are harder to place
Mazzolini, Joan. Cleveland Plain Dealer, Feb. 23, 2007, pg. B3.

The number of Cuyahoga County children available for adoption has dropped by more than half in the last six years, but those still looking for permanent homes are older and harder to place.As a result, commissioners on Thursday agreed to spend nearly $1.8 million this year to expand a coordinated effort, called Adopt Cuyahoga's Kids, to find homes for the 916 children in permanent county custody.

The children, who are placed in county custody because of parental abuse or neglect, end up in foster care, group homes or with relatives on a temporary basis.

Cuyahoga County, the United Way and other local groups launched the program three years ago, targeting 656 kids who were 10 or older and who had been in the county's permanent custody for more than a year.

Coordinated by Adoption Network Cleveland, 14 adoption agencies researched the children's pasts in search of potential parents, such as distant relatives, teachers, coaches and other adults who had passed through the children's lives.

In addition to finding families for children, the Adopt Cuyahoga's Kids program helps guide prospective parents through the adoption process.

More than 300 of the children were adopted, but hundreds of others are still waiting. And some children turned 18 and left the system without being adopted.

"Sixty-seven percent of the kids are 9 years or older," said Jim McCafferty, director of the county's Children and Family services. McCafferty told the commissioners Thursday that the older children are much harder to place, with many families preferring infants or toddlers.

McCafferty said the program has drawn national and state attention.

"It's expensive, it's time-consuming," he said, "but it works."

At the same time, the county is working to keep families together.

The commissioners also voted to pay more than $900,000 to Beech Brook, a mental-health and treatment center in Pepper Pike, to work toward reuniting families and their children.

However, the cases are particularly difficult and the agency also works toward finding alternative families if a reunion seems unlikely.