Chapin Hall

For nearly 30 years, federal legislation shaping adoption has remained largely unchanged, even as expectations around privacy, youth voice, and family support have significantly evolved.

To respond to this gap, the Selfless Love Foundation (in partnership with Chapin Hall and the Child Welfare League of America) hosted the National Think Tank on Adoption Policy in October 2025. The convening brought together young people with lived experience in foster care and adoption alongside child welfare system professionals and researchers from across the country. What resulted is the Driving Change in Adoption toolkit, which translates lived experience and cross-system expertise into clear, actionable action for child welfare agencies, adoption organizations, and advocates working to modernize adoption policy and practice.

At the center of this work is the belief that young people should have meaningful voice and choice throughout the adoption process. This means not only at the point of finalizing adoption, but also in decisions about how young people are represented, how their information is shared, and what supports they have access to. At the convening, participants identified key gaps in current policy and practice and developed strategies to adopt them across four areas: consent and consultation, photolisting and privacy, recruitment of families, and post-adoption support.

The toolkit has six main parts:

1. Driving Change in Adoption report: A comprehensive report outlining key findings and recommendations
2. Action Steps Summary: Provides an overview of strategies that participants identified
3. Action Plan Workbook: For advocates to set goals, identify partners, manage data, and take achievable steps toward change
4. Lived Expert Survey Results: Highlighting lived experts’ adoption and foster care experiences across 30 states
5. National Adoption Policy Scan: A summary of adoption policies in all 50 states
6. Presentation on the National Adoption Policy Scan: An accompanying overview to support comparison and learning across jurisdictions

These resources equip systems to uphold the rights, safety, and agency of young people at every stage of the adoption process.

Chapin Hall has a longstanding commitment to cocreating solutions with partners from across the human services, centering lived experience in child welfare, and translating evidence into actionable tools to improve outcomes for young people. To learn more about this project or explore how to apply these resources in your state or organization, contact Yvonne Fox.

Report

Driving Change in Adoption

Action Plan

Action Steps Summary
Action Plan Workbook

Lived Expert Survey

Lived Expert Survey Results

National Policy Scan

Adoption Policy Scan
Presentation on Policy Scan