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they could not make ends meet, Ollie went to apply for welfare benefits and learned that his adoptive mother was receiving funds for him called an adoption subsidy . The adoption subsidy is a contract between the adoptive parent and the state .8 The subsidy payments are paid to the adoptive parent for the care of the child . Children designated as hard-to-place children out of foster care may be eligible for this subsidy as well as medical coverage, depending on their needs, until the age of 18, or in New York, the age of 21 .9 Ollie learned three months before his 21st birthday that his adoptive mother was still receiving these payments even though she put him back into foster care . His adoptive mother never planned for Ollie to return home, did not even visit him, and did not let his younger brother, whom she also adopted, see him .
Ollie experienced what is called a “broken adoption .”10 This has also been called failed adoption or adoption discontinuity . For some adopted youth, something happens in the family structure that results in a break, and the child does not remain in the home, may return to family court, and even sometimes back into foster care . Ollie never realized his adoptive mother received money for him . Every year, children are adopted out of foster care presumably into their “forever family” and that should be their happy ending . The reality for some of these adopted children has been quite the opposite of a happy ending, resulting in the broken adoption . In 2014, a New York Daily News article highlighted that many adoptive parents continue to receive money for children not in their care or for children who are never going to return to their care and that what persists is “a confusing tangle of bureaucratic rules and a lack of city oversight .”11 Adoptive parents who have kicked children out of their home and are providing no financial support often continue to receive subsidy checks which are intended for the adopted child’s care . The data to quantify this issue is just starting to come together, but we have a long way to go and we do know that some youth and young adults end up a part of the homeless or other systems .
Until recently, under the interpretation of the adoption subsidy regulations and statute,12 in practice the only way the subsidy would stop flowing to the adoptive parent (other than the child reaching the maximum age for the subsidy) was through the death of the adoptive parent, or if the adoptive parent elected to stop the subsidy payment by informing the agency in writing that he/she no longer wished to receive the subsidy payment .13 The intent was to ensure that the adopted child received the basic necessities of life with the subsidy . Unfortunately, the impact
8 See N.Y. soc. serV. law § 453; New York Adoption Subsidies, N.Y.S. office of children & family serVs., http://ocfs. ny.gov/adopt/subsidy.asp.
9 See 42 u.S.C. § 673; N.Y. soc. serV. law § 453.
10 CLC began looking at this issue by surveying practitioners in the Family Law field about broken adoptions. See Dawn J. Post & Brian Zimmerman, The Revolving Doors of Family Court: Confronting Broken Adoptions, 40 caP. u. l. reV. 437 (2012).
11 Nick Nehamas, Children Still Bring in Subsidy Checks for the Adoptive Parents Who Tossed Them Aside, N.Y. daily news, Sept. 2, 2014, http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/discarded-children-bring-checks-adoptive-parents- gave-article-1.1862778.
12 See N.Y. soc. serV. law § 453.
13 The New York State Office of Children and Family Services recently issued guidance that clarifies when an adoption subsidy can be terminated, and “follow up” measures local services agencies can take when they have “reasonable cause to suspect that the adoptive parent(s) is no longer providing any support” for the child. See N.Y.S. Office of Children & Family Services, Local Commissioners’ Memorandum No. 16-OCFS-LCM-02, Changes Impacting Adoption Assistance Payments (Feb. 3, 2016), http://ocfs.ny.gov/main/policies/external/OCFS_2016/ LCMs/16-OCFS-LCM-02%20Changes%20Impacting%20Adoption%20Assistance%20Payments.pdf. however, if the funds to the adoptive parent are terminated for this reason, they are not currently available to a new custodian or guardian for the child.
Impact: Collected Essays on Expanding Access to Justice