The National Center for Enhanced Post-Adoption Support services for statestribal nationsterritories

The National Center for Enhanced Post-Adoption Support provides universal and on-site technical assistance and a comprehensive resource library to support states, tribal nations, and territories as they develop, implement and sustain comprehensive, community centered, and accessible post-permanency services.

About the Center

What We Stand for

Funded by the United States Department of Health & Human Services, Administration for Children & Families, Children’s Bureau in October 2023, the National Center for Enhanced Post-Adoption Support provides access to various resources that will enable states, tribal nations and territories to provide practical, culturally responsive services to families that have achieved permanency through adoption or guardianship. The Post-Adoption Center represents an important way that the Children’s Bureau provides technical assistance to states, tribal nations and territories.

Services provided by the Post-Adoption Center are free of charge, collaborative and driven by community engagement.

The Post-Adoption Center will partner with the three other Centers (the Center for Workforce Excellence and Leadership, the National Center for Adoption Competent Mental Health Services, and the National Center for Diligent Recruitment) established by the Children’s Bureau to offer comprehensive technical assistance to states, tribal nations and territories. These centers are key components of the Children’s Bureau’s commitment to helping child welfare systems enhance safety, permanency, and well-being for children and families.

Our Impact

Since beginning recruitment, the National Center for Enhanced Post-Adoption Support has continued to make great strides in partnering with states, tribal nations and territories as they develop, implement and sustain post-permanency services for families that have achieved permanency through adoption or guardianship.

Through center-initiated outreach or site-initiated contact, the Post-Adoption Center has connected with forty-six states and nine tribal nations. To date, we have held:

Exploratory Meetings

On-site TA initiation

Tier II Meetings

Assessment Reveals

Latest Resources

Brief/Tipsheet

How to Develop and Distribute an Outreach Letter to Adoptive and Guardianship Families
Provides key elements, distribution strategies and best practices for developing and disseminating an outreach letter and well-being questionnaire to adoptive and guardianship families. This tipsheet also includes practical tips for[...]
Article

How To Define Your Post-Permanency Population and Why It’s Important to Do So
Explains why child welfare agencies should create and maintain a comprehensive census of all children in their post‑permanency population (adoption or guardianship) and how doing so strengthens stability, service delivery,[...]
Brief/Tipsheet

State of American Indian/Alaska Native Children and Families Part 5: Child Welfare
Offers a review of data related to American Indian and Alaska Native children and child welfare. It focuses on the early to mid-points of the child welfare pathway-beginning with suspected[...]

Benefits of the National Center for Enhanced Post-Adoption Support

Enhance your knowledge.

Child welfare professionals who work in post-permanency can find articles, webinars, tools and podcasts to enhance the supports and services that they provide to families who have achieved permanency through adoption or guardianship. The Post-Adoption Center’s resource library is a hub for information on post-permanency programs and services.

Connect with peers.

The Post-Adoption Center offers child welfare professionals participation in peer groups discussing a variety of topics related to post-permanency. Through these groups, professionals can ask questions, share lessons learned and brainstorm solutions to common challenges.

Get help from experts.

We are here to help! We can answer questions, help child welfare professionals find resources related to post permanency and provide technical assistance for child welfare systems.

Permanency is about safety and connectedness and finding these things is a lifelong journey, especially for children and youth who have experienced trauma and loss. Signing on the dotted line isn’t the end of the journey, it’s the beginning. Adoption and guardianship is about guiding children and youth throughout the rest of their life. When families commit to this journey it’s important that they have all of the support, education and advocacy they need. Child welfare systems have to do everything in their power to help adults, children and youth be successful on this journey.

Person with Lived Expertise

When we as a society decide that certain children and youth no longer can live with their birth families and place them in other families through adoption or guardianship, it seems only logical that we then are responsible for ensuring the well-being and safety of these children and youth until they reach adulthood. Therefore, robust post-permanency programs that provide an array of services and supports are vital for child welfare systems to have. 

Post-Adoption Center Staff Member

I have seen firsthand, both as an adoption professional and as an adoptive mom, the power of robust, wide-ranging post-permanency support. Access to therapists who really understand adoption issues and early childhood trauma, nonjudgmental parent support and education programs was integral at multiple points in my kids’ lives. So many families, including my own, benefit from these specialized services. Our family has overcome incredible odds and found healing, hope and connection in the post-permanency services provided in our state.

Adoptive Parent