Welcome to the Adoption Opportunities Grant Home Page
The Adoption Opportunities Grant is putting Ramsey County on the national scene! Ramsey County Human Services, Minnesota was awarded a $2 million five-year Federal Adoptions Opportunity Grant for the diligent recruitment of resource families for waiting children in foster care, including kinship, foster, concurrent and adoptive families. Ramsey County was one of only nine recipients of these highly competitive grants nationally.
The primary goal of the Permanent Recruitment Project is a permanent home for every child. To achieve this goal, the Project Manager and team (in collaboration with the office of the Administration for Children and Families) will plan, develop and implement a multifaceted diligent recruitment plan to increase the number of foster/adoptive families, thereby increasing the number of children being adopted.
Plan objectives are to:
- Increase the number of foster/adoptive homes, including relative/kinship homes;
- Increase the number of racial/ethnic specific homes, to increase the number of homes reflective of the racial/ethnic heritage of the children in foster care and decrease the existing disproportionality in out-of-home placements;
- Review and revise practices and policies that create barriers to adoption and foster care licensure in order to create a system that supports prospective adoptive parents and creates safe, permanent homes for children;
- Increase the number of older children and youth finding permanent homes through adoption;
- Develop an agency structure that maximizes available resources for recruitment and retention of foster and adoptive homes and;
- Identify effective practices and strategies, share lessons learned, and develop manuals/guides and tools that can be used in the recruitment and retention of adoptive and foster homes.
Number of Clients Served:
The sole clientele of the project are the children in the Permanent Connections unit. Currently there are 263 children who are under state guardianship (AKA state wards).
Target Client Population:
The target client population served includes African American children, Hispanic/Latino children and older youth.
Collaborative Partners:
- Ramsey County Human Services
- Children’s Bureau
- African American community
- Hispanic/Latino community
- Business community
Staff:
It takes many people serving in various capacities to ensure success. The Project’s staff compliment consists of the following roles:
- Project manager
- Internal and external evaluators
- Clerical staff
- Social workers
- Planning consultants
- Unit supervisors and managers
- Foster/adoption recruiter
- Grant writer
- Budgeting and Accounting analyst
- Division director
- Project management coach
Location:
Ramsey County Community Human Services Department
Division of Family and Children
Ramsey County Government Center East Building
