This report describes the 4117 children in out-of-home care who were adopted in New York City between January 1 and December 31, 1997. Here and there they will be compared with the 3996 children adopted in calendar year 1995⁽²⁾ and 3238 children adopted in calendar year 1996.³ As in the latter reports, this analysis is based on data from WMS and CCRS (New York State's child welfare tracking system) and therefore is limited by the availability and quality of those data. Once again missing data and serious data entry errors resulted in the necessary exclusion of cases from some analyses, and the preclusion of other analyses. Again, in an attempt to avoid errors as a result of extreme values, medians will be reported rather than the usual averages (means). Regardless, caution must be exercised, and numbers reported should be considered suggestive rather than definitive.

In calendar year 1997 more children were adopted than in either 1995 or 1996. The three distributions of adoptions were as follows, per quarter:

 

 

One can see that while there was a proportionate decrease in adoptions during the first quarter of 1997, when compared to 1995 and 1996, there was a sizable jump in adoptions during the second quarter from 32.5% and 32.9% in 1995 and 1996 respectively to 54.9% in 1997. This increase in adoptions was a function of a city and state collaborative effort, Adoption Fast Track⁴, which included expedited handling of abuse investigations of potential adoptive families, expedited approvals of subsidy applications, temporary increases in judicial personnel, and heightened attention to the movement of adoption cases by the court system and by the Administration for Children's Services.

It is also of interest that the third quarter of 1997 shows a proportionate decline, as though the system required a rest after having been in a "full steam ahead" mode. Indeed each year the July 1 through December 31 period shows a lower proportion of adoptions than the period of January 1 through June 31, the end of New York City's fiscal year.

Description of Adoptions Completed in 1997

In 1997 in New York City, a total of 4117⁵ children in out-of-home care were adopted after having spent a median duration of 6.2 years in foster care during the most recent placement episode.⁶ This and some other highlights can be seen in Table 1. Only 8.1% had spent three years or less in care prior to being adopted. Roughly one-half (50.6%) were males. Seventy-four percent were Black, 22.1% were Hispanic, and the rest were Asian, White, or classified as interracial.

Table 1

Child, Adoptive Parent, and Placement Characteristics

	Number	Medians & Percents
Duration in placement	4113	6.2 yrs.
Child's age at entry, this episode	4116	7.0 mos.
Child's age at adoptive home placement	4116	2.2 yrs.
Child's age at adoption goal change	3696	3.9 yrs.
Child's age at adoption	4116	8.1 yrs.
First placement episode	4114	92.0%
Adopted by kin	4102	42.6%
Adoptive mother's age at adoption	2560	50.7 yrs.
Adoptive father's age at adoption	897	51.8 yrs.
Single adoptive parents	2574	65.7%
Adoption subsidy	4032	99.3%
Single child adoptions	4117	38.5%
In adoptive home at, or within one month of, placement into care	4117	51.5%

At the time the children entered care their median age was seven months and they ranged in age from a few days old to over 17 years. Nearly 49% were six months old or younger. When they were placed in the homes that eventually adopted them, their median age was 2.2 years, and 37.3% were under age one. When their goals were changed to adoption, their median age was 3.9 years and 50% of the children were between 1.9 and 7 years old. At the time they were freed, their median age was 5.5 years. Finally, at the time of adoption, their median age was 8.1 years and 50% of the children were between 5.4 and 11.2 years old at that time. Their age at different points along the adoption road was strongly related to their age at the start of this placement episode. The older at placement, the older they were when goals were changed (r = .89), when they were freed (r = .84), and when they were adopted (r = .79). Age at placement was, however, essentially unrelated to various durations along the road to adoption. For example, age at placement was minimally related (r = .10) to the elapsed time before the goal change to adoption. Thus among children who were six months old or younger when they entered foster care, the median time between placement and goal change was somewhat shorter (median = 1.8 years) than for children who were over six months old (median = 2.7 years). But beyond this, various age groupings examined did not differ with respect to the duration between placement and adoption goal change.

Many of the children had been in placement for quite some time prior to their adoption. The median duration of placement during the current placement episode was 6.2 years, this ranging up to 15 years. For the vast majority (92%), this placement episode was their first placement into foster care, with the rest having entered care one to four times earlier. Also, a small proportion of children (1.8%), almost all in their first placement episode, had at some point been discharged home on a trial basis and had subsequently returned to care.

At the time of their adoption most children (82.6%) were in the care of 48 contract agencies,⁷ with 17.4% in the care of the Administration for Children's Services (ACS). Almost 43% of the children were adopted by kin. Of those adopted by kin, nearly 31% were in the care of ACS. Although the proportion of children in kinship homes in the care of ACS has remained fairly similar over the years (32.3% in 1995 and 30% in 1996) there was a slight increase in the overall proportion of children adopted by kin, from 36.8% in 1995 to 40.7% in 1996 to 43% in 1997. Table 2 presents some highlights of similarities and differences among kinship and non-kinship adoptions, many of which will be mentioned later in this report.

Table 2

Kinship and Non-Kinship Adoptions:
Child, Adoptive Parent, and Placement Characteristics

	Kinship (N=1748)	Non-Kinship (N=2354)
In the care of contract agencies	69.2%	92.5%
Duration in placement	7.1 yrs.	5.5 yrs.
Child's age at entry, this episode	13.7 mos.	3.5 mos.
Child's age at adoptive home placement	2.2 yrs.	2.2 yrs.
Child's age at adoption goal change	5.0 yrs.	3.1 yrs.
Child's age at adoption	9.2 yrs.	7.2 yrs.
Placement --> adoption goal change	2.8 yrs.	1.8 yrs.
First placement episode	93.6%	90.8%
Adoptive mother's age at adoption	53.0 yrs.	49.3 yrs.
Adoptive father's age at adoption	54.1 yrs.	50.9 yrs.
Single adoptive parents	74.7%	59.6%
Sibling group adoptions	43.9%	35.4%
In adoptive home at, or within one month of, placement into care	61.8%	44.4%

The race/ethnicity of adoptive parents is of interest, although it is important to remember that CCRS designations, on which it is necessary to rely here, may involve a certain unknown amount of error. Nearly two-thirds (65.6%) of the 2551⁸ adoptive mothers on whom there was information were designated as Black, 25.4% were designated Hispanic, 5% were White, and the rest Asian and mixed. As for 890 adoptive fathers: 53.8% were designated Black, 26.7% Hispanic, 10.4% White, the rest Asian and mixed. Almost all of the Black mothers, fathers or couples (96.7%) adopted children who were Black. A somewhat lower percentage of Hispanic parents (70.9%) adopted Hispanic children, and an even smaller proportion of White mothers, fathers, or couples (44.7%) adopted White children. Looked at from the perspective of the children, 82.8% of Black children were adopted by Black mothers, fathers, or couples, 8.5% by Hispanic, 1.7% by White, and the rest by Asian and mixed-race parents and couples. Nearly eight out of ten (78.6%) Hispanic children were adopted by Hispanic parents, the rest by Black (6.4%), White (3.7%), Asian and various mixed-race combinations. Children designated as White were mostly adopted by White (59.6%) and by Hispanic (21.2%) parents, the rest by Black (8.1%), Asian and various mixed-race parents and couples.

At the time of adoption, the median ages of 2560 adoptive mothers and 897 adoptive fathers were, respectively, 50.7 and 51.8 years, and they ranged in age from 19 to over 84 years. Kinship adoptive mothers were on average nearly four years older than non-kin mothers, whereas the age difference between the fathers was about three years. These ages and age differences were quite similar to those of 1995 and 1996.

Nearly 66% of the adoptive parents were single parents, primarily single mothers (65.2%), with higher proportions of single parents among kinship (74.7%) than among non-kinship (59.6%) homes. Perhaps because such kinship/non-kinship differences were quite similar during recent years, and because there was a small increase in the proportion of kinship adoptions, the proportion of single parents adopting also increased from 58.7% in 1995 to 63.2% in 1996 to 65.7% in 1997 adoptions. Almost all adoptions (99.3%) were subsidized, as was the case in the previous two years, 66.1% for children designated as hard-to-place (because of age, sib status, etc.), and 33.9% for children with handicaps.

Multiple-child adoptions consisted mainly of siblings adopted together, although some of these groups may have included unrelated children. The percentage of sibling groupings among adoptions in 1997 were nearly identical to those reported for adoptions of 1996. Thus, 38.5% of the children adopted in 1997 were single-child adoptions, 31.3% were two-child adoptions, 17.9% were three-child adoptions, the rest consisting of four- to eight-child adoptions. In 1996 the parallel percentages were 40.2%, 31.3%, 16.2% with the remainder consisting of four- to seven-child adoptions. The proportions of single and multiple-child adoptions were quite similar in 1995 as well.

When adoptions of 1997 are looked at as families, 2587 families adopted 4117 children. Like adoptions in 1995 and 1996, somewhat over 6 out of 10 of the families (61.2%) adopted one child in 1997, and 24.9% adopted two children, 9.5% adopted three children, with the rest adopting four to eight children. As was the case in previous years, kinship families were slightly more likely to adopt sibling groups than non-kinship families, as 43.9% of kinship families adopted groups of two or more siblings, compared to 35.4% of non-kinship families.

The placement histories of over one-half of the children were very stable. That is, 51.5% of the children were eventually adopted by the home they entered at, or within one month of, placement and another 10.2% were in an adoptive home between one and six months of their entry into care. These percentages are similar to adoptions completed in 1996, where the respective percentages were 49.8% and 11.3%. Only 17% were placed in their adoptive homes following three years in care. In view of such stability of placement it is no surprise that at the time their goals changed to adoption, a large majority of the children (79.5%) were residing in homes that eventually adopted them. So too, at the time they were freed most of the children (88.6%) were living with their to-be-adoptive parents. For the 11.4% who were placed into homes following their freeing, the median time between their entry into foster care and their adoptive home placement was 5.1 years.

For the group as a whole, there was a median duration of three years between placement into homes that in time adopted the children and the signing of adoption agreements. And the median time between placement into adoptive homes and finalization was 4.8 years, with the middle 50% of cases ranging from 3.1 years to 7.8 years prior to finalization. The time between placement into adoptive homes and finalization was slightly shorter for single children (4.4 years) than for sibling groups (5.1 years). It was nearly three years shorter for contract agency cases (4.4 years) than for ACS cases (7.2 years), and within each of these the time was roughly 1 1/2 years shorter for non-kin homes than for kinship homes. There was also considerable variation among contract agencies. For instance, when one singles out agencies with 100 or more completed adoptions in 1997, they varied from a low median duration of 3.2 years to a high of 5.7 years between adoptive home placement and finalization.

To return for just a moment to the children whose placement histories were very stable --- the 51.5% of the children who were eventually adopted by the home they entered at, or within one month of, placement. Who were these "from the start" children? Did they differ, and in what way? They were as likely to be in the care of contract agencies as ACS, when compared to children placed in adoptive homes later. But whether in contract or public agency care, a higher proportion (50.6%) of these "from the start" children, compared to 34.1% of the rest, were adopted by kin, their median age at placement into foster care (4.2 months) was about eight months younger than children placed into adoptive homes later (12 months old), and a slightly higher proportion of them (41.4%) were single-child adoption than was the case for the rest of the children (35.4%). On the whole, the time between their placement and goal change (2 years), between goal change and finalization (2.9 years) and between placement and finalization (5.4 years) was shorter than for children placed into adoptive homes later (2.5 years; 3.8 years; 7.2 years respectively).

Milestones and Other Considerations

The achievement of the five official milestones for 1996 and 1997 adoptions can be seen in Table 3. With the exception of milestones 2 and 4, they were achieved for a minority of children in both years. In 1997 the first milestone (time from placement to goal change), was achieved for 28.9% of the children, and for the group as a whole the median was 27 months. It can also be seen that the achievement levels and medians for 1997 adoptions are very similar to those for 1996 and, although not shown, they are very similar to adoptions of 1995 as well.

Table 3 shows that the largest lag in achievement in 1997 occurred in the duration of time between placement and the change of goal to adoption, as was the case when adoptions in 1995 and 1996 were examined. As noted then, many factors can extend the duration before reaching a decision about a goal change to adoption. When this was examined it was, for instance, apparent that longer median durations occurred among a small group of cases in which children went home on trial discharges, among children in sibling groups, and among children in kinship homes. Nevertheless, in relation to the promotion of permanency of the Adoption and Safe Families Act (A.S.F.A.) it is to be noted that in only 15.8% of 3624 cases (cases with no trial discharge) was the goal changed to adoption within 14 months of a child's placement.⁹ The proportions of "within 14 months" were higher among cases in non-kinship (21.7%) than among kinship homes (7.4%), and within each of these the percentages were higher among contract than among ACS cases.

Table 3
Milestones: 1996 and 1997 Adoptions

	1996 Adoptions			1997 Adoptions
Milestone Time Frames	Number	Median (months)	Milestone Achieved	Number	Median (months)	Milestone Achieved
1. Placement --> goal change to adoption (Milestone = 18 mos)	2960	27.2	28.1%	3697	27.0	28.9%
2. Goal change --> petition to free (Milestone = 4 mos)	2563	3.8	54.9%	3045	3.7	57.4%
3. Goal change --> freeing (Milestone = 12 mos)	2878	15.2	33.0%	3556	15.3	34.4%
4. Freeing --> signing adoption placement agreement (Milestone = 3 mos)	2940	1.1	67.7%	3676	1.3	64.2%
5. Signing adoption placement agreement --> finalization (Milestone = 12 mos)	2940	15.8	32.9%	3676	16.0	34.8%

In addition to the five official milestones shown in Table 3, larger time frames were examined. For example, the duration between freeing and adoption should be 15 months, when one adds together the official designations for milestones 4 and 5. This milestone was achieved for 31.8% of the children. The median duration between freeing and adoption was 21.4 months, with the middle 50% of cases ranging from 12.7 months to 35.5 months. The median duration was higher among 571 ACS cases on whom information was available (41.4 months) than for the 3312 children in contract agency care (19.3 months), and within each of these the median duration was somewhat longer for kinship than for non-kinship homes. Although on the whole ACS cases showed longer durations for cases remaining in ACS care at finalization (between freeing and finalization many cases had been transferred) there was also much variation among contract agencies. For example, when contract agencies with 100 or more adoptions completed in 1997 were examined, they varied from a low median duration of 12.9 months to a high of 32 months between freeing and finalization.

Even larger stretches of time were reviewed. Here the achievement proportions are somewhat lower. For example, the duration between adoption goal change and final adoption should be 27 months, according to the milestones set forth. The median duration was 39.7 months, with the middle 50% of cases ranging from 27.6 months to 57.3 months. The 27-month milestone was achieved for 23.6% of the 3697 children on whom information was available, compared to 24% in 1996 and 24.3% in 1995, and median durations of 38.5 and 36.6 months for 1996 and 1995 respectively. When one looks at the largest time frame, the total time from placement to final adoption, the median duration was 74.6 months, with the middle 50% of cases ranging from 52.4 months to 98.9 months. The 45-month milestone was achieved for 16.5% of the 4113 children on whom information was available, compared to 15.2% in 1996 and 16.1% in 1995, and median durations of 73.9 and 69.8 months for 1996 and 1995 respectively. On the surface there is the appearance of an "upward creep" in median durations for the group as a whole since 1995. Closer examination showed that the durations remained almost identical for non-kinship adoptions. Increases in duration were therefore a function of kinship adoptions. For instance, from adoption goal change to finalization the median durations for non-kinship adoptions were 37.7, 37.5, and 37.6 for 1995, 1996, and 1997 respectively. In contrast, the median durations for kinship adoptions for those years increased from 34.5 to 39.5 to 44.0 months.

As was the case among adoptions in 1996, the drop in achievement proportions for the larger time frames occurred because there were no sequential relationships among milestones. Thus whether a particular milestone was achieved for a child had essentially no bearing on whether the next sequential milestone was achieved for that child. In statistical terms, there was no correlation between milestone durations (the highest correlation was: r = .09). Therefore over time more and more cases fell behind.

Using the five official milestones, the total number of milestones achieved for each child are presented in Table 4, which shows the results for cases with no missing information in 1995, 1996 and 1997. It can be seen that only 3% of the cases achieved all milestones in 1997, roughly the same as in 1996, and slightly higher than the 2.4% in 1995. At the low end, 6.9% achieved no milestones in 1997, compared to 6.2% in 1996, and 5% in 1995. On the whole, the three distributions have remained quite similar over the years.

Table 4
Number of Milestones Achieved: 1995, 1996 & 1997

	1995		1996		1997
Number achieved	Number	Percent	Number	Percent	Number	Percent
None achieved	159	5.0	153	6.2	199	6.9
One achieved	625	19.6	561	22.7	632	21.9
Two achieved	1003	31.5	817	33.1	810	28.0
Three achieved	907	28.5	582	23.6	829	28.7
Four achieved	415	13.0	277	11.2	331	11.5
All achieved	75	2.4	76	3.1	87	3.0
Total	3184	100.0	2466	100.0	2888	100.0

As mentioned previously, cases of children who were in their adoptive homes from the beginning of their entry into foster care (or shortly thereafter) consistently showed somewhat shorter median durations along the adoption route than children placed into adoptive homes later. The differences were quite similar to those reported for adoptions of 1995 and 1996. For instance, the median duration was shorter between entry into foster care and the goal change to adoption, between the goal change to adoption and freeing, and between freeing and adoption agreement signing. When one examined longer time frames, such as the duration between the adoption goal change and finalization, cases of children in adoptive homes "from the start" showed a median duration that was 10.6 months shorter than cases where some time elapsed between their entry into care and their placement into homes that became their adoptive homes. And, as was the case in 1995 and 1996, a somewhat higher proportion of the "in the adoptive home from the start" cases achieved the various ACS milestones than did other cases. The two largest differences in achievement occurred in milestone 4 (duration between freeing and signing an adoption agreement) where 14.9% more of the "from the start" cases achieved the 3-month milestone, and in milestone 1 (duration between placement and goal change to adoption) where 13.1% more achieved the 18-month milestone than cases where more time elapsed before an adoptive home placement.

Judicial Procedures

Most children (81.5%) adopted in 1997 were freed as a result of a TPR court proceeding with respect to one or more parents. The remaining 18.5% consisted primarily of surrenders. The proportion freed via a TPR court proceeding in 1997 was slightly lower than was the case in 1996 (84.1%) and 1995 (85.0%).

Information on the county courts where dispositional hearings to free the children occurred was available on 3234 cases, 98.6% of which occurred in the Family Courts of the five boroughs of New York City. In what follows, the discussion is limited to these five courts. The distribution can be seen in Table 5 which shows that most filings were in the courts of Brooklyn, Bronx, or Manhattan. Information on the county courts where adoption petitions were filed was available on 2513 cases, 80.8% of which were filed in the Family Courts of the five boroughs of New York City. Table 5 also shows these distributions. As was the case in the 1995 and 1996 Adoptions reports, the information here pertains almost totally to contract agency cases because of missing information with respect to Administration for Children's Services cases.

Table 5
NYC Family Courts Where Children Were Freed and Petitions to Adopt Filed

	Children Freed		Adoption Petitions Filed
	Number	Percent	Number	Percent
Brooklyn	850	26.7	741	36.5
Bronx	833	26.1	735	36.2
Manhattan	1226	38.5	238	11.7
Queens	243	7.6	304	15.0
Staten Island	36	1.1	13	.6
Total	3188		2031

It is noteworthy that although 850 children were freed and 741 adoption petitions were filed in Brooklyn, these were not necessarily the same children. An examination of the joint occurrence of freeing and adoption petition filing was hampered by considerable missing information. The information for children freed in the Family Courts of the five boroughs of New York City is shown in Table 6. Thus for 850 children freed in the Brooklyn Family Court, information on adoption petition filing was available for 561 children. In 61.1% of these 561 cases, both the freeing disposition and the petition to adopt were filed in the Brooklyn Family Court. In the Bronx Family Court, both types of hearings occurred in 57.5% of the 602 cases where both sets of information were available; for 847 Manhattan cases there was an overlap for only 15.6% of cases; for 179 cases freed in Queens the overlap was 49.2%; and there was a joint occurrence of about one-quarter of 17 cases in the Staten Island Family Court.

Table 6
Family Court

	Brooklyn	Bronx	Manhattan	Queens	Stat. Isl.
Number of Children Freed	850	833	1226	243	36
Information Available for Freeing and Adoption Petition Filing	561	602	847	179	17
Number Freed and Adoption Petition in Same Court	343	346	132	88	4
Percent in Same Court	61.1	57.5	15.6	49.2	23.5

Overall, between the filing of petitions to free and the filing of adoption petitions most cases (58.6%) were shifted from one court to another. At the same time, this was a slight downward change over the nearly 63% that were shifted in 1996. In that report it was shown that cases handled in the same court shortened the time between the point of freeing and adoption petition filing, as well as finalization, hence the downward shift, from a child's point of view, signifies a desirable change.

Judicial Steps Within the Milestones

In reporting on the five milestones (Table 3) a number of sequential judicial steps were only briefly mentioned or omitted entirely. Yet they are of interest. For instance, the duration of time between filing petitions to free and the date of freeing was available for 3071 (74.6%) of the children. The median duration was 10.5 months, quite similar to the medians of 10.3 and 10.1 months reported for adoptions of 1996 and 1995 respectively. The vast majority of these proceedings took place in the Family Courts of the five boroughs of New York City with median durations ranging from 9.4 to 11.2 months.

The duration of time between freeing and the filing of petitions to adopt was available for 2513 (61%) of the children. The median duration was 12.7 months, quite similar to the medians of 12.3 and 12.8 months for adoptions of 1996 and 1995. The range in duration in the Family Courts of five New York City boroughs was 9.0 to 13.1 months. For the group as a whole, the median span of over a year could have been a function of time needed to place children into adoptive homes following the freeing procedure. Indeed, the duration between freeing and filing adoption petitions was much longer (median = 28.6 months) for such children. But these situations included only 11% of all children, with the remainder having been placed into their adoptive homes at some point prior to the freeing procedure. The median duration between freeing and adoption petition filing for these "in the home before freeing" children was 11.5 months. In addition to the timing of the adoptive home placement, other factors were examined such as sibling status, whether the children were placed with kin or not, and whether the children were in the care of the public or contract agencies. None of these made a particular difference in the duration between freeing and adoption petition filing.

The location of the two legal events was also explored. In Table 6 figures were presented on the joint occurrence of freeing dispositions and adoption petition filing in the Family Courts of five NYC counties. Among the 2206 cases where information about both was available, 41.4% occurred in the same county. Having both events in the same NYC county court (although not necessarily before the same judge) lowered the median time between freeing disposition and adoption petition filing by 3.7 months, when compared to hearings that involved a change in courts. This was quite similar to the reduction of 3.2 months among adoptions of 1996.

Finally, the duration between filing petitions to adopt and finalization was available for 2513 (61%) children. This showed a median time of 5.1 months, when compared to 5.4 months in 1996 and 4.6 months reported for adoptions of 1995. Among cases of 1997, the duration in the Family Courts of five New York City boroughs ranged from a median of 3.2 months to 7.5 months.

Some Final Thoughts

This review of 4117 adoptions completed in 1997 has shown the essential similarity between 1997, 1996, and 1995 with respect to the adoptees, the adopters, and various time frames along the road to adoption finalization. Although the number of adoptions has increased from 3238 in 1995 to 4117 in 1997 many other aspects barely budged. The continuities were impressive. Only here and there were a few differences between years noticeable, as was apparent in the small increase in the proportion of kinship adoptions over time and the increases in various durations for children adopted by kin.

There was also much similarity across the years in the ups and downs of total quarterly finalizations, showing a rise during the April 1-June 31 quarter of each year, and a slump in the quarter thereafter. From the standpoint of the children such a cyclical pattern is odd since it seems unlikely that more children and their families are ready for adoption during one part of the year than another. From a systemic point of view it would also be preferable to have a more stable pattern of adoption filings and finalizations throughout the year rather than the roller-coaster pattern that now exists. Once such a cyclical pattern has been established it is, however, not easy to undo. Perhaps attention might be given to this matter, with goals and incentives more evenly spaced across all quarters, so that greater stability might substitute for what now exists.

It is worth noting another similarity over the years: the duration of time between placement and goal change to adoption. The median time was 2.3 years among 1997 and 1996 adoptions, and 2.2 years for adoptions of 1995. This finding is particularly relevant in view of the promotion of permanency provisions of the 1997 Adoption and Safe Families Act. It is sobering to note that less than 16% of cases in their first placements among 1996 and 1997 adoptions, and less than 17% for 1995, met the guidelines set forth by that legislation. In this regard it becomes vital to identify and implement approaches, such as an earlier exploration of a range of permanency options, whose purpose is to expedite permanency planning.

The ongoing problem of missing data and glaring inaccuracies in CCRS is also of concern. One can only hope that case tracking in the future information system Connections will address these problems. But new systems do not necessarily solve data omission, transmission or entry problems. Diagnosing the reason for these difficulties would be an important first step. Training programs also might incorporate material on the importance of accurate information and the need for improvement in this regard. Missing data in CCRS hampered various analyses in this report, as was the case in the past. For instance, information on the dates that petitions to free were filed was missing in nearly 900 cases, the dates of court dispositions to free were missing for over 200 children, and the dates that petitions to adopt were filed were missing for 1600. Since accurate information on these judicial events is available in the Family Court, the problem would be solved if a way could be found for the ACS, state, and court computer systems to "talk" to each other.

Finally, as was the case in past years, based on information available, it was shown that where freeing and adoption petition filing occurred in the same Family Court (but not necessarily before the same judge) it lowered the median duration between these two judicial events and, in turn, shortened the time it took for finalization. One can only imagine the saving in time if judges were routinely responsible for continuing with a case from freeing disposition through to finalization.¹⁰ From the psychological perspective of children, and from the fiscal perspective of New York City, this would be a desirable change.

Notes

1.	I want to thank Commissioner Scoppetta of the Administration for Children's Services (ACS) for making it possible to examine the CCRS data on completed adoptions, and Joseph Cardieri for his support. And special thanks to Win Buckwalter for his essential help in creating the file that allowed me to do the SPSS analysis. I am also deeply grateful to those who provided feedback and helpful suggestions, and especially Rachel Pratt and Sarah Greenblatt. [back to text]
2.	Festinger, T. (1996). Adoptions 1995. Unpublished report. Ehrenkranz School of Social Work, New York University. [back to text]
3.	Festinger, T. (1997). Adoptions 1996. Unpublished report. Ehrenkranz School of Social Work, New York University. [back to text]
4.	Swarns, R. (1997, June 18). Fast track to adoption is setting records. The New York Times, p. B2. [back to text]
5.	In what follows, the totals vary somewhat because of missing information. [back to text]
6.	Except where specifically noted, in what follows entry into care refers to the most recent placement episode. [back to text]
7.	In New York City children are placed with contract agencies through purchase-of- service contracts with the public department. In some locales these contract agencies are called provider, voluntary, or private agencies. [back to text]
8.	Lower total number because an adoptive parent of a sibling group is counted only once. [back to text]
9.	U.S. Code. 1997. 42 U.S.C. section 675 (5) (C) & (F). Fourteen months is used because A.S.F.A. requires that a hearing be held no later than twelve months after the date the child is considered to have entered foster care (which is defined as the earlier of 60 days after a child's removal or the date of the first judicial finding of abuse or neglect). [back to text]
10.	A study is currently under way (NYC Family for Kids and New York University) that examines this question. [back to text]