Use made of the experience with a casework agency by eight prospective adoptive parents

85 Pages·03.935 MB·English

by  Craig, Maryjo

USE MADE OF THE EXPERIENCE WITH A CASEWORK AGENCY
BY EIGHT PROSPECTIVE ADOPTIVE PARENTS
A Thesis
Presented to
the Faculty of the School o f Social Work
The U niversity of Southern C alifornia
In P artial Fulfillm ent
of the Requirements for the Degree
Master of Social Work
by
Mary jo Craig
June 1950
UMI Number: EP66334
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s Ui
This thesis, written under the direction of the
candidate’s Faculty Committee and approved
by all its members, has been presented to and
accepted by the Faculty of the Graduate School
of Social Work in partial fulfilment of the re­
quirements for the degree of
MASTER OF SOCIAL WORK
...G b i£ u z ^ S ^ ^ {. .......
Dean
DateJJ.SU*.....
Thes'is o/....mEYJ.O...CRAIG
Faculty Committee
Chairman
TABLE OF. CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAG®
I . INTRODUCTION ..................................................... 1
The problem................................................................................. 1
Statement of the problem ............................................. 1
H istory of adoption as a casework
service................................................................................. 2
The home stu d y ................................................................... 4
Scope of the stu d y ...................................................... 10
D efinition of term s.................................................... 11
Home stu d y ..................................................................... 11
Prospective adoptive p a ren ts.......................... 11
Casework agency........................................................... 11
S ettin g................................................................................. 1 2 '
Organization of remainder of the th esis. . . . 14
- H. AN ANALYSIS OF SUMMARIES OF CASE RECORDS . . . . . 16
The Norris case................................................................ 17
The Young c a s e ................................................................. . 19
The Stone case .................................................... 22
The Richards case.................................................................. 24
The Hood case. . .............................................................. 27
The McDonald case......................................................... 30
The Franks case................................................................ 32
The Brown c a s e ....................................................................... 35
iii
CHAPTER PAGE
III. AN ANALYSIS OP SOME SPECIFIC USES OP THE
EXPERIENCE................................................................................. 40
IV. CONCLUSIONS AND OBSERVATIONS..................................... . 69
BIBLIOGRAPHY............................................................................................... 76
LIST OE TABLES
TABLE PAGE
I. Uses Prospective Adoptive. Parents Made of the
Experience with a Casework Agency. . . . . . . . 7S
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
I . THE PROBLEM
^Statement o f the problem. There has been some ques­
tion , both In and out of the fie ld of social work, about
the value of agency adoption. A part o f th is questioning
has been whether adoption is or is not a casework service.
Does an agency offer anything that prospective adoptive
parents can use in becoming real parents to a child taken in
adoption? The Womans Home Companion of March, 1950 carried
an a rticle which stated clearly the objections of the gen­
eral population to agency adoption. Other recent a rticles
have questioned the procedures and time involved in agency
adoption. This th esis is an attempt to analyze what
adoptive parents get from the experience of working with a
casework agency during the process of becoming adoptive
parents. To use the service a casework agency offers, im­
p lies that the prospective adoptive parents can become in­
volved in the process with the agency and can take and use
help in becoming parents to an adopted ch ild .
Nearly a ll who come to an agency recognize the
protection that an agency offers to them. This th esis is
intended to explore the uses adoptive parents make o f the
experience with a casework agency whether they do or do not
go on to become adopting parents. It is hoped that th is
th esis w ill answer some of the criticism of agency adoptions
by showing the ways in which adoptive parents do use the
experience with an agency.
H istory o f adoption as a casework service. Although
casework has been a method in social work for at least
th irty years, and adoption placements have been made by
agencies for a longer period than that, adoption as a case­
work service is fa irly new to the fie ld of social work. The
literatu re shows that adoption as casework is a recent de­
velopment, for example, the Proceedings of the national
Conference o f Social Work make no mention of adoption as
casework u n til 1941. A few casework agencies were making
adoptive placements ea rlier.
The Social Work Yearbook in 1935 states that,
"Adoption is the only type of placement of dependent child­
ren not at present recognized as a d istin ctive function of
1
a caseworking agency." By 1943 T« heis could say of
adoptions that,
Increasingly child adoption work has been integrated
with casework services of child w elfare agencies.
1 R ussell H. Kurtz, ed itor, Social Work Yearbook.
1935 (New York: R ussell Sage Foundation, 1935), p. 24.
Because of th is, parents have an opportunity of knowing
of a ll child care resources and social services avail­
able to them and th eir ch ild . If the child is to be
placed for adoption, casework service is made available
not only to the child to be adopted and to h is foster
parents, but also to the natural parent in relation to
the surrender of the ch ild .2
The program of the National Conference of Social Work
seems to have recognized adoption as a casework service only
in 1941 when a paper on "The Foster Parent and the Agency in
3
the Adoption Process” was given by Harral. Prior to that
the only mention of adoption in recent years had been a
paper in 1938, which emphasized the protection offered a
5
child by an agency. In 1942, T heis1 paper on "Case Work in
the Process of Adoption" outlined the major points of in­
terest in a casework agency to that date.
Since adoption as a casework service is so new it
follow s that there is very lit t le professional literatu re
on the subject. Recent a rticles do emphasize the fact that
when adoptive parents come to the agency with the desire for
2 Ib id ., 1943, p. 27.
Elizabeth Harral, "The Foster Parent and the Agency
in the Adoption Process," Adoption Practice (New York:
Child Welfare League of America, In c., 1941) ^ pp# 49- 61.
4 Mary Ruth Colby, "Protection of Children in
Adoption," National Conference of Social Work Proceedings
(New York: Columbia U niversity Press, 1938), pp. 146-61.
® Sophie Van S. Theis, "Case Work in the Process of
Adoption," National Conference of Social Work Proceedings
(New York: Columbia U niversity Press, 1942), pp. 405-157
a ch ild , they can and must be helped to prepare for adoptive
parenthood before they are rea lly ready to take a child by
adoption.
The home study. Increasingly social workers have
arrived at a conviction that the home study period, in
addition to being a time for evaluation of a coupled abi­
lit y to be adoptive parents, can be, for the applicants, a
time when they can use the agency services to prepare for
parenthood. It Is almost axiomatic that very few people who
come to an agency to apply for a child are ready to take a
child by adoption at that point.
Nature prepares parents for the birth o f an own
child; parents who adopt must also prepare for the
child. It is a differen t process, but no le ss rea l,
and it is something they must consciously do for them­
selves. tod lik e the birth of a child, it is something
that cannot be hurried; it must follow Its own natural
course.6
Some of the uses adoptive parents could make of the
home study have been im plied in the litera tu re. These w ill
be presented as a basis for comparison with the findings in
th is study.
In the fir st place a parent who comes to an agency
must accept the scrutiny of the agency. They ask for a
child and get an agency, too. "To take a rela tiv ely unknown
® Ora Pendelton, "Agency H esponsibility in Adoption,"
The Family. 19:39, A pril, 1938.