Adoption of a child with special needs and the impact of family dynamics

Families that adopt children with special needs deal with new challenges that impact their family. Challenges can include stress, marital instability, financial decline, and unsteady family structure. Parents with adopted children with special needs are often times not prepared to care for the child's disability. Services pre- and post adoption may or may not be given to support these families. This project investigates these factors though a review of literature and qualitative research through a case study with a focus family. The findings of the project included several factors that have impacted the case study family's lives. The impacts include lack of support, financial decline, marital separation, and stress that have made a difficult outcome in the family's lives. Educators will be able to increase their knowledge about factors that impacts adopted families so that they could provide support in an effective manner