Parenting Transracially Adopted Youth: An Evaluation of Support Services

Transracial adoptions involve the adoption of a child of one racial/cultural group by parents of a different racial/cultural group. In the United States, transracial adoptions commonly involve the adoptions of African American children by white parents. These transracial adoptions are often accompanied by challenges beyond those expected with same race adoptions. This research study was designed to evaluate the services that social workers provide to families to deal with the challenges that they face. The results showed that cultural support services received less time than other types of trainings offered to adoptive families. In studying the relationships between services offered and family ability or child development areas, the results were generally inconclusive suggesting weak but not statistically significant relationships. However, the results showed statistically significant negative relationships between other trainings offered and child development areas. These results can likely be attributed to awareness of child development issues associated with transracial adoptions on the part of the social workers