by Marie Cohen

Some of my happiest days as a social worker were the days I was able to celebrate the adoption of a child by loving foster parents that I had worked with since the child was placed with thm. I will never forget these people that opened their homes and their hearts to a child who was not born to them but who needed their loving care. They were parents in every sense of the word but the biological. Yet, a minority of adoptive parents do not fit this description or even the minimal definition of an adequate parent.

On March 26, an SUV carrying Jennifer and Sarah Hart and their six adopted children drove off a cliff into the Pacific Ocean in Northern California. Days before the crash, Washington State’s Department of Children Youth and Families had opened an investigation of the family after a neighbor called the child abuse hotline. It turned out that the family had a history of abuse reports in three states, starting even before three of the children were adopted. Eventually, we learned that Jennifer and Sarah Hart had received thousands of dollars in adoption subsidies to care for these children while they starved and abused them for years. If federal law had required an annual check-in with the children, they might have been spared years of suffering and untimely death.

There have been many reports of parents collecting adoption subsidies while abusing and neglecting their children or even after killing them. Michael and Shirley Gray collected $3,000 in adoption subsidies per month for four out of their five children adopted in two Tennessee counties while starving them and confining them in cages and closets. Two of the children died and were buried on the family’s property while the parents continued to receive the subsidies. In Iowa, Sabrina Ray and Natalie Finn died of starvation at the hands of their adoptive parents, and Malaiya Knapp ran away from her adoptive home after being locked in a basement and abused for years. Renee Bowman in Maryland beat, choked and starved all three of her children adopted from DC foster care. She killed two of them and kept their bodies on ice in a freezer while collecting $150,000 for raising them. Edward and Linda Bryant in Colorado collected $175,000 in subsidies for the adoption of two boys in 2000; they have not been seen since 2001 and 2003.

Reports of egregious or even fatal abuse of children adopted from foster care appear surprisingly often in the media, but most of these reports do not mention subsidies. But since the vast majority of parents who adopt from foster care (90 percent between 2005 and 2016) receive subsidies, it is likely that most of these “parents” were receiving them.

More common than horrific abuse and neglect are “broken adoptions,” in which the child is legally adopted but is no longer being cared for by the adoptive parents. A survey of 383 youth and adults who exited foster care to adoption¹ found that almost 10 percent of the adoptees experienced “formal placement instability;” about eight percent reported re-entering foster care and almost two percent reporting the termination of their adoptive parents’ parental rights or emancipation before the age of 18. Another 30 percent of survey participants reported that they experienced “informal post-adoption instability,” including running away, leaving home before age 18, living with a nonrelative adult other than the adoptive parent, or being homeless. It is worth noting that some adoptive parents (like some birth parents) relinquish their highly challenging children to foster care in order to obtain behavioral health care and fully expecting to get them back. I do not consider these to be broken adoptions unless the parents refuse to take them back after their symptoms have been alleviated.

We do not know how many adoptive parents or guardians continue to receive subsidies after they have permanently stopped caring for their children. But In New York State, this issue has been on the radar of legislators and advocates for more than a decade. Advocacy and services groups in New York City began reporting in the 2010’s that they were working with children who were struggling to survive after leaving or being kicked out by their adoptive parents. The city’s Children’s Law Center set up a project to study these broken adoptions and publicized egregious cases, such as a sibling group whose adoptive parents had received over $200,000 in subsidies after the adoption had broken and and an adoptive father who continued to accrue subsidy payments for his children in jail after he murdered the adoptive mother. New York City’s Daily News reported in 2014 that a judicial hearing officer said he dealt with “hundreds” of cases a year where adoptive parents continued receiving subsidies after their children had left their homes. In a letter to the federal Administration on Children and Families (ACF) in 2015, the Commissioner of the city’s Administration for Children’s Services reported that in a single month during the previous year the agency had made subsidy payments for 143 adopted children who had already returned to foster care. That means the government was paying twice for the same children, with one payment going to the foster parent and another to the adoptive parent who was no longer caring for the child.

How can adoptive parents and guardians continue collecting subsidy payments for children that they have stopped caring for, neglected, abused or even killed? The Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 (AACWA) established the adoption subsidy program to address widespread concern that many children were languishing in foster care because foster parents would have to give up their subsidies in order to adopt. The Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 added the guardianship subsidy program. According to Federal statutes 42 U.S.C. § 673, an adoption or guardianship subsidy may not be paid if the child has turned 18 or 21 (depending state policy and whether the child has a disability), if the state determines that the parents or guardians are no longer legally responsible for the support of the child, or if the state determines that the child is no longer receiving any support from the parents or relative guardians. But the statute provides no mechanism for the state to determine that the parents or guardians are no longer supporting the child. Instead, it states that parents or relative guardians “who have been receiving adoption assistance payments or kinship guardianship assistance payments under this section shall keep the State or local agency administering the program under this section informed of circumstances which would, pursuant to this subsection, make them ineligible for the payments, or eligible for the payments in a different amount.”

Government financial assistance programs do not generally leave it up to the recipient to inform the government that they are no longer eligible for benefits. Other than social security retirement and survivor benefits (which are meant to last a lifetime), federal assistance programs generally require a periodic redetermination of a recipient’s need for assistance. Members of the 96th Congress apparently did not suspect that adoptive parents would abuse, neglect or abandon their adopted children or that they would fraudulently collect adoption subsidies. However, it is important to note that the law does not actually forbid states from requiring periodic redetermination of the need for an adoption subsidy and the wellbeing of the adopted child. Unfortunately, the federal Administration for Children and Families (ACF) has misinterpreted the law to impose such a prohibition.

On December 31, 2007, ACF added to its Child Welfare Policy Manual (CWPM) a new question and answer about adoption subsidies. The new text stated that a title IV-E agency “cannot reduce or suspend adoption assistance solely because the adoptive parents fail to reply to the its request for information, renewal or recertification of the agreement. Once an eligible child is receiving title IV-E adoption assistance pursuant to an agreement, adoption assistance continues until either the adoptive parents concur to a change or one of the statutory conditions are met for termination of the assistance.” The answer continues: “Once an eligible child is receiving title IV-E adoption assistance pursuant to an agreement, adoption assistance continues until either the adoptive parents concur to a change or one of the statutory conditions are met for termination of the assistance (section 473(a)(4) of the Social Security Act and [CWPM] Section 8.2B.9 Q/A #2).”

As mentioned above, section 473(1)(4) of the Social Security Act says that adoption or guardianship assistance cannot be paid after the child ages out or if the state determines that the parents are no longer supporting or responsible for supporting the child. But in a 2001 policy announcement (later incorporated into the CWPM section referenced above) the agency changed the wording to: “[o]nce an adoption assistance agreement is signed and in effect, it can be terminated under the following circumstances only.” Saying the assistance cannot be paid if these circumstances exist is very different from saying the subsidies can be terminated only if these circumstances exist. ACF’s interpretation denies states the opportunity to determine whether the conditions for ending the subsidy are present.

ACF has continued to obstruct any effort to protect children adopted from foster care and impose fiscal discipline on the subsidy program. Twenty-eight years after the passage of AACWA, the 110th Congress passed the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008, which required that every state plan for foster care and adoption assistance provide assurances that each school-age child is indeed attending school or has completed secondary school. To comply with this requirement, New York’s Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) adopted a new regulation² requiring local offices to notify adoption subsidy recipients annually that they must certify that their school-age children are in school or have completed high school. The notice had to include a reminder of parents’ obligation to support the child (!!!) and of notify the local agency if they are no longer providing support for the child or are no longer legally responsible to do so. But there was some discussion in OCFS, according to an Administrative Issuance that has since been cancelled, about what to do when adoptive parents do not comply with the request for a certification. Also, there were “questions raised” about “when submission of additional proof (relevant to both support and school attendance) beyond certification, can, or should, be requested.” OCFS brought these questions to ACF and was told in no uncertain terms that “because the federal adoption assistance program is an entitlement, the state may not impose additional criteria beyond the federal requirements.”³ Furthermore, stated OCFS, “ACF advised against any intensive or intrusive inquiry into an adoptive family’s life.” The requirement for certification was allowed, but no attempt to verify it or even follow up when a parent did not answer. Despite Congress’ desire to ensure that all children receiving foster care and adoption assistance were in school, ACF was adamant that no verification was allowed.

The federal government’s pressure on states to keep the pipeline from foster care to adoption flowing has obviously not abated. The American Bar Association has suggested that this pressure may in fact be leading to an increase in the number of adoptions that fail as states encourage adoptions by foster parents who are not actually capable of meeting the children’s needs. The story of Krista and Tyler Schindley illustrates how such pressure can lead to disaster. The Schindleys were sentenced to 40 years in prison for the horrific abuse and attempted murder of their 10-year-old adopted son in Spalding County, Georgia. A neighbor had found the emaciated boy, who had escaped the house where he had been locked up, starved, and beaten. Three years before his escape, the Schindleys had adopted the boy along with his two sets of twin siblings, despite dire warnings against allowing them to do so. A school counselor told the Division of Children and Family Services (DCFS) caseworker that the adoptive mother did not want the boy and urged the agency not to proceed with the adoption. Even worse, the private faith-based foster and adoption agency that placed the children with the Schindleys eventually dropped the plan of adoption and revoked the family’s foster care license, telling DCFS that “the Schindleys were not fit to adopt the boy, or other children.” Unbelievably, DCFS re-licensed the foster home and pushed through the adoption. When the Title IV-E agency has no priority higher than shifting children from foster care to adoption, such things can happen.

The number of children in adoptive or guardianship has been quietly increasing as a portion of total Title IV-E caseload since the passage of the Adoption Assistance and Safe Families Act in 1990. While children in foster care were 79 percent of the Total IV-E subsidy caseload in 1990, they had fallen to 17 percent of the subsidy caseload by 2023, with the remaining 83 percent receiving adoption and guardianship subsidies. This is mainly due to the fact that Congress restricted eligibility for federal reimbursement of foster care subsidies as part of welfare reform in 1996 but exempted adoption subsidies from these limits. In FY 2024, an estimated 554,000 children received IV-E adoption subsides each month, 46,000 received guardianship subsidies, and 112,000 received foster care subsidies. In FY 2025, the federal government spent $4.479 billion on adoption and guardianship assistance, which is between 50 and 83 percent of the amount spent by each state or tribe.⁴

In 2025, after eight years of advocacy, the governor of New York finally signed a bill⁵ designed to address the problem of fraudulent adoption subsidy receipt, but it is only a very weak start. It requires parents to “certify annually” that they are fulfilling the obligations of their adoption subsidy agreement. But no documentation is required, so any parent can certify that they are fulfilling these obligations regardless of whether the child is even alive, let alone well-cared for. It is only if the parent fails to certify that the state agency is directed to “review all available information in order to confirm the parents’ continued eligibility to receive the subsidy.” Something much stronger is needed.

In order to protect children adopted from foster care, or those who leave foster care for guardianship, there should be at least an annual process to verify that each child is alive, well, and still being supported by the adoptive parents or guardians. The best way to implement this would probably be through a face-to-face meeting with the child. Like a CPS interview, this should be conducted out of earshot of the adoptive parents or guardians. In its Blueprint for Child Welfare Financing, published in 2025, the Child Welfare Financing and Accountability Working Group of the Bipartisan Policy Institute recommended that states be required to conduct annual wellness checks of children as a condition of IV-E reimbursement for subsidy payments. Perhaps there is a way to verify a child’s wellbeing and a parent’s support without a face-to-face meeting, using documentation from a school or pediatrician. What is clear is that there needs to be some process to evaluate the child’s well-being and the parents’ support at least yearly. There is nothing in the law that forbids such a check-in, but it is clear that Congress must act to make it happen.

When foster parents received a subsidy and adoptive parents did not, a perverse incentive kept children in foster care. But when adoption subsidies were added, they did not come with the monthly or bimonthly visits from a social worker that foster care requires. And that provision of money, without oversight, had perverse consequences of its own. The expenditure of billions of dollars without any controls (and the knowledge that at least thousands have been fraudulently spent) would be proof in itself of the need for a change. But the existence of not one or two, but many cases of severe abuse and neglect and sometimes death in these homes, there is no morally acceptable excuse for failing to check on these families. Given what we know now, it is immoral to continue offering adoption subsidies without at least annually verifying that the children are alive, well, and being supported by the adoptive parents who are receiving taxpayers’ money to care for them.

Notes

1. These were children from the National Surveys of Children and Adolescent Well-being NSCAW I and II are longitudinal surveys of children and families who were subject to Child Protective Services (CPS) investigation. For this study, the researchers conducted new surveys with the families of children who were identified as adopted prior to the end of the original NSCAW I study period (August 2005-December 2007) or the original NSCAW II study period (June 2011 to December 2012).  ↩︎
2. See OCFS regulation 18 NYCRR 421.24(c)(19) ↩︎
3. That statement makes no sense. Other than social security retirement and survivor benefits, most or all entitlements require recertification. ↩︎
4. See Appendix, Budget of the U.S. Government, 2027, page 482. Spending for foster care was $5.298 billion. Foster care spending was still higher than adoption and guardianship spending because its costs for administration, training and data systems are much higher. ↩︎
5. See S784, which amends S8745, passed the previous year, ↩︎