June 16, 2021 (Kansas City, KS/Independence, MO.) — The Kansas Department of Children and Families (DCF) has awarded FosterAdopt Connect more than $2.7 million for services designed to increase the number of adoptions in the state and support adoptive families. FosterAdopt Connect serves foster and adoptive families, as well as children coming into the child welfare system.
In a post-adoption services DCF contract, effective for four years beginning July 1, 2021, FosterAdopt Connect will receive $1.02 million to maintain the Kansas Post Adoption Resource Center (KPARC) and provide:
- Expertise on national and local best practice around adoption from foster care,
- Support to adoptive families throughout Kansas, and
- Help connecting families to services, support groups and professionals to strengthen family relationships and improve parenting skills.
FosterAdopt Connect will plan, coordinate and support regional adoption events in coordination with community partners to raise awareness of adoption services. The nonprofit social services organization also will maintain databases of resources and coordinate other activities that help foster children and families who adopt.
A second, four-year, $1.71 million Kansas DCF contract assigns FosterAdopt Connect to provide “Adoption Exchange” services beginning July 1, 2021. Those services include:
- Maintaining, managing, and enhancing a statewide adoption resource exchange to match children in DCF custody with families prepared to meet their needs;
- Developing and utilizing targeted and diligent recruitment strategies in partnership with Kansas Child Placing Agencies to help identify, educate and support potential adoptive families for the children listed on the adoption exchange; and
- Working to place children on The National Adoption Exchange.
FosterAdopt Connect will deliver services in accordance with the standards and ethics outlined by the Adoption Exchange Association and DCF policies and state statutes.
“There is a critical need for families to adopt older children, siblings and kids with special needs in the system, and we’re committed to finding them and all foster children their ‘no matter what’ homes,” said FosterAdopt Connect CEO Lori Ross. “We work hard every day to ensure all children have a bright future in safe, loving families, and we are grateful for the trust the state has placed in us to serve Kansas foster kids and adoptive families.”