Placement stability for internationally adopted children with disabilities

Adopting a child with disabilities can be both challenging and rewarding. Parents who have adopted children from outside the United States with mental health and intellectual/developmental disabilities sometimes struggle to find appropriate pre- adoption education and/or post-adoption support to help them manage the challenges of parenting a child with a disability. The purpose of this study was to inform adoption practices and improve adoption supports for families that adopted children with disabilities.

I hoped to understand and learn how parents who have adopted children from outside the United States with disabilities (including mental health and intellectual/developmental disabilities) manage the challenges of parenting a child with a disability. In particular I looked  at families where the parents have made the difficult choice to place their internationally-adopted child in temporary or permanent placements outside of the adoptive home. This study was approved by the University of Minnesota Institutional Review Board #1301P26761

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