Adoption grant will increase permanency for youth in foster care

An amendment to Sub. HB 45 could incentivize adoptions from foster care as well as private adoptions, welcome news to a system where 3,400 foster children are waiting statewide for adoption right now.

According to the Public Children Services Association of Ohio, the new $15 million Ohio Adoption Grant Program will not only assist those seeking private adoptions, but also foster parents, kinship caregivers and others adopting through the public foster care system. “There are very few if any costs associated with adoption from the foster care system,” PCSAO Executive Director Angela Sausser said. “But an adoption grant can support families who open their hearts and homes to a child in foster care with special needs.”

Sausser noted that of those children available for adoption right now, more than 1,400 are age 13 and up. “Most have been traumatized by their experiences and some have special needs, but all deserve to grow up in families,” Sausser said.

Grants in the proposed program, which replaces the adoption tax credit, run from $10,000 as a baseline, to $15,000 if the adoptive parent was also a foster caregiver for the child, to $20,000 if the child has special needs. “The grant will be helpful to many prospective adoptive parents, especially kin caregivers like grandparents, who often live on fixed incomes,” Sausser said.

PCSAO lauded other investments in the bill, including a one-time $2,500 higher education grant program for adopted Ohio residents, $9 million to prevent custody relinquishment of youth with multi-system needs, $30 million to support the job and family services workforce and $85 million for the behavioral health workforce.