Photo credit BigStockPhoto Machineheadz
by Chauncey Strong, MSW, and Leah Sutterlin
More than 15,000 youth aged out of foster care in 2023. Statistically, these youth face a higher risk of unemployment, homelessness, incarceration, and mental health problems as adults. We often talk about the need for more family recruitment, but we also need to start conversations around permanency earlier with youth still in the system.
Comparing Options for Permanency
Reunification with biological families is ideal, but in cases in which that is not possible, adoption and guardianship both provide teenagers and young adults with options for stability, provision, and mentorship.
Deciding between adoption and guardianship depends on the individual circumstances, the child’s needs and expressed wishes, and what’s best for everyone involved.
Here are some key differences between adoption and guardianship.
Permanency and Clarity
Adoption is a permanent legal transfer of parental rights. Once adopted, the young person becomes a legal member of the adoptive family with all the rights of a biological child. Guardianship, on the other hand, grants a caregiver legal authority to care for the young person while preserving the legal relationship with the birth parents. One important difference is that in a guardianship relationship, the birth parents have the possibility of petitioning a court for parental/guardianship rights in the future. Guardianship is also easier to change if circumstances evolve.
Legal Rights
Through adoption, a child gains the same legal rights as a biological child, including inheritance rights, a new birth certificate, and (sometimes) a last name change. This does not occur with guardianship, although guardians do have the legal rights and obligations to provide a home, meet material needs, manage finances, and participate in medical and educational decision-making with youth.
Support and Responsibility
Adoptive parents assume full legal responsibility for the child until adulthood (and beyond, in the same way as for a biological child). Guardianship can be either temporary or permanent, depending on the court order, but guardians have similar responsibilities to adoptive parents while under appointment.
Family Connections
Guardianship keeps children’s legal ties to their biological parents and can work well for relatives who do not want to disrupt legal parental relationships. However, both open adoption and guardianship allow for ongoing contact and relationships with the child’s biological family.
Asking the Right Questions
When deciding between adoption and guardianship, there is no one-size-fits-all approach, but a caseworker can ask questions to understand how the youth is feeling and ensure they are aware of their options.
Some questions a social worker can ask include:
- What is your understanding of adoption? What about guardianship?
- What concerns do you have about these relationships?
- Who do you want to live with? If you saw your family five to ten years from now, who would be in that picture? Hypothetically, who would you want at your graduation or your wedding?
- Who do you want to stay connected with right now or in the future? What would you like those relationships to look like?
- What types of support matter most to you at this stage of life (emotional, practical, financial)? What do you think will matter five to ten years from now?
In considering guardianship versus adoption, most youth aren’t thinking about the legal aspects. They're more immediately concerned with tangibles (e.g., where they’re going home to each night), so it can help to broaden their perspective by imagining long-term scenarios.
It’s also important to support young people in preserving existing relationships by considering permanency options—such as guardianship or open adoption—that can maintain and nurture connections with the biological family. Decisions about ongoing contact should be guided by the wishes of the youth and supported by the adoptive family or guardian.
Finding the Right Match
Many older youth in foster care have endured significant transitions and may struggle with attachment later in life because of past trauma, so we must elevate the youth’s voice in the search for a family.
From experience, we’ve seen that youth are less likely to be adopted by, or in guardianship relationships with, adults with whom they have no prior connection. That’s why it’s important to explore kinship matches or foster families who are open to adoption or long-term guardianship.
Caseworkers can use family-finding strategies and technologies to identify people who may be connected to and/or optimal for the youth (such as 30 Days to Family or Family-Match by Adoption-Share), while also making efforts to keep them with siblings and in their community of origin.
Overcoming Opposition
If facing opposition to permanency, social workers need to unpack the “no.” They may find that youth view adoption or guardianship as a betrayal of their biological family, or that they want the benefits of an apartment or free college that extended foster care provides up to age 21.
To reframe the narrative, we can work with prospective adoptive parents or guardians to show that adoption or guardianship can offer the advantages of independence plus lifelong support—and that open adoption, in particular, doesn’t deny the youth a relationship with their biological family.
For many youth who have grown up in poverty, the idea of a monthly stipend (which is given in some states during extended foster care or upon emancipation) can be very appealing. We thus need policy reforms to ensure that youth are not disincentivized from the option of a permanent family. In many states, those adopted in young adulthood can still benefit from college tuition waivers, up to $5,000/year for post-secondary education until age 26 through the Education and Training Voucher (ETV) program, and Medicaid.
Adoption or guardianship can be scary. By working with youth to articulate their true needs and desires, encouraging adoptive parents to establish open communication lines with biological families, and offering a realistic and comprehensive picture of the full benefits available to youth in adoption or guardianship, the process becomes more supportive.
As a result, more teenagers and young adults can end up with the gift of a forever family.
Chauncey Strong, MSW
Chauncey Strong, MSW, is the Executive Director of Strong Training and Consulting, LLC. He has more than 30 years of hands-on experience in both private and public child welfare. He is an adoptee, a passionate motivational speaker, and a dedicated advocate for children and families.
Leah Sutterlin
Leah Sutterlin is an adoptee who works for the National Council For Adoption and frequently writes on adoption-related topics. She has worked with foster youth as a Court Appointed Special Advocate and as a Regional Manager with Help One Child.