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

Group of happy children laughing together outdoors in winter

Family portrait of parents and children standing together outdoors

Mother and daughter sharing a warm hug during autumn outdoors

Happy family spending time together outdoors in a green park

What We Stand for

Funded in 2023, by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Administration for Children & Families, Children’s Bureau, the National Center for Enhanced Post-Adoption Support provides resources to help states, tribal nations, and territories deliver practical, community centered services to families who have achieved permanency through adoption or guardianship. All services are free, collaborative, and grounded in community engagement. The Post-Adoption Center also partners with three other Children’s Bureau–funded centers to provide comprehensive technical assistance, supporting efforts to strengthen child welfare systems and improve 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

Video

Elevating Youth Engagement
Introduced the EYE curiculum, a resource designed to support child welfare system leaders, youth-serving organizations, communities and young adults with foster care experience in building authentic partnerships. The curriculum also[...]
Article

What Does It Mean to Value Youth Partners as Assets?
Explains why child protection agencies should treat youth with lived experience as essential partners in improving the child welfare system. This article outlines how to value youth as assets through[...]
Web Page

Foster Care and Adoption Statistics-AFCARS 2025 Update
Provides a clear snapshot of the latest AFCARS 2024 foster care and adoption data, highlighting continued declines across key areas. It reports that fewer children entered care, exited care, or[...]

Benefits of the National Center for Enhanced Post-Adoption Support

A social worker taking notes while speaking with a mother and her two children on a couch in a home setting during a post-adoption support visit.

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.

Two women talking during a peer support group meeting in a community space

Educational workshop providing guidance and support for adoptive families and professionals

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