The Role of Worker Support and Religious Support in African American Special Needs Adoption: The Bennett Chapel Experience

The Role of Faith in Adoption:Achieving Positive AdoptionOutcomes for African American Children

Kathleen Belanger, Sam Copeland, and Monit Cheung

African American children are overrepresented in fostercare by more than twice their proportion in the population(U.S. Government Accountability Office [USGAO], 2007).Building upon research relating faith (religiosity) to positivehealth and mental health, this study utilized cognitive andreligious coping theories to examine the influence of faithon choosing to adopt, achieving positive adoption outcomes,and reducing disproportionality. From Louisiana andTexas, 113 families who adopted 226 children, 48% AfricanAmerican, participated in a survey measuring children’sbehavior and parent distress (PSI-SF Difficult Child andParent Distress Subscales) and religiosity (Hoge IntrinsicReligiosity Index). Of the respondents, 93% of the respon-dents belonged to a religious congregation, 86% attendedchurch weekly. Controlling for child’s behavior, religiositypredicted lower stress in adoptive parenting; church atten-dance was related to improvement in parental health sinceadopting. Faith was rated most frequently as essential inparents’ decisions to adopt. The study concludes that faithmay be an asset in increasing adoptions and improvingadoption outcomes resulting in increased numbers ofAfrican American children adopted.

Kathleen Belanger PhD, LMSW-AP is Assistant Professor, Stephen F. Austin StateUniversity, Nacogdoches, Texas. Sam Copeland PhD LCSW is Associate Professor,Stephen F. Austin State University, Nacogdoches, Texas. Monit Cheung PhD, LCSW isProfessor, Graduate College of Social Work, University of Houston, Houston, Texas.

0009–4021/2008/020899-123 $3.00 Child Welfare League of America 99

100 CHILD WELFARE • VOL. 87, #2

In 1996 the wife of a minister in rural East Texas felt spirituallycalled to adopt a child in need. She and her sister both attended therequired training. Friends and family members learned of the need

for adoptive families, and since 1998, members and friends of Ben-nett Chapel Missionary Baptist Church have adopted 69 AfricanAmerican children and one biracial child. The families were not re-cruited by the public child welfare agency, but self-referred. Theydrove 60 miles roundtrip for six weeks to obtain the necessarytraining to adopt. When 23 more families self-recruited, adoptionclasses were held at Bennett Chapel (Madigan, 2001).

Information about these families has been obtained to date informally. The pastor and his wife have been interviewed by themedia a number of times including appearances on the OprahWinfrey Show, and CBS’ 48 Hours. They consistently explain theirreasons for adopting as religious, a call from God (Hollandsworth,2001; Madigan, 2001). In addition, they explain their ability tomaintain the adoptions as religious-based. According to one adop-tive mother on a particularly stressful day, “If it weren’t for theLord . . . I would have nutted up” (p. 3), while the pastor’s wife de-scribes her faith as a support: “To me it’s a daily walk. I just con-tinue to lift it up to God. They’re here, but they’re not healed.We’ve come a long way, but we still have a long way to go” (p. 8).Visits to Bennett Chapel reveal quiet and happy children, evenduring church services that last more than three hours. Parents in-formally have discussed how their children’s behavior has im-proved since adoption, that many medications have been reduced,but that children (and parents) still have their greatest difficultywith school. Parents have also discussed their satisfaction with theadoptions (Hollandsworth, 2001; Madigan, 2001). The families ofBennett Chapel were the inspiration for this study.

On September 30, 2005, there were 513,000 children in fostercare, with 114,000 children waiting for adoption (U.S. Departmentof Health and Human Services [USDHHS], 2006b). While 40% of

Address reprint requests to Kathleen Belanger at [email protected].

Belanger et al. 101

waiting children were white and 36% African American, the per-centages of waiting children were disproportionate to the racialrepresentation in the child population. According to Hill (2006),“Disproportionality refers to the differences in the percentage ofchildren of a certain racial or ethnic group in the country as com-pared to the percentage of the children of the same group in thechild welfare system” (p. 3). In 2004 African American childrenwere overrepresented nationally in foster care at more than twicetheir rate in the child population (USGAO, 2007, p. 8).

However, racial disproportionality in child welfare is not anew dilemma. Lawrence-Webb (1997) dates the disproportionalityof African Americans in the child welfare system to the 1950s and1960s when benefits for AFDC were restructured. In the 1950s re-cipient worthiness was an eligibility requirement for financial assistance. Illegitimate children, out-of-wedlock relationships, andsubstandard living arrangements, were among factors indicating“unworthiness,” resulting in mass expulsions of needy AfricanAmerican children from financial assistance. While the FlemingRule of 1961 sought to correct injustices in enforcement by requir-ing due process, it increased state intervention in the homes (p. 12).When interventions “failed” in the sometimes culturally unskilledworker’s assessment, clients were forced into the courts, with theirchildren often removed from their care, resulting in a large pro -portion of African American children in the child welfare system,49% of whom were in foster care (Jeter & Child Welfare League ofAmerica, 1963; Lawrence-Webb, 1997).

Roberts (2002) documented a steady increase in the proportionof African American children in public child welfare caseloads,with nonwhite caseloads nearly doubled between 1945 and 1961 to27% (Billingsley & Giovannoni, 1972; Roberts, 2002). Proportionshave continued to rise steadily so that now, while only 15% ofthe child population, African American children are 23% of the victims (USDHHS, 2006a), 26% of those entering foster care, 32%of those in foster care, and 36% of children waiting to be adopted(USDHHS, 2006b).


Efforts to Increase Adoptions of African American Children

Several efforts have been made to increase the number of AfricanAmerican children adopted. The Institute for Black Parenting inCalifornia and Project Hustle in Texas provided flexible agencyhours, training, recruitment, and staff training in cultural compe-tence to overcome barriers African American families face inadopting, proving that “minority families will and do adopt”(McRoy, Oglesby, & Grape, 1997, p. 96). Adoption subsidies re-moved financial barriers to adopting faced by many African Amer-ican families (Lakin & Whitfield, 1997; Simon & Altstein, 1992) andappear to have been a critical part in the decision of some familiesto adopt children with special needs (Barth, 1993).

In addition, faith-based solutions have also been successful. In1980 with over 1,000 children awaiting adoption in Illinois, the Illi-nois Department of Child and Family Services joined efforts withinterested community leaders, including African American RomanCatholic priest Father George Clements, to find inracial adoptivehomes for children of color in Chicago. This effort was the start ofOne Church One Child, a program that has expanded to 26 statesand has resulted in the adoption of hundreds of children. How-ever, even with these efforts there are still large numbers of AfricanAmerican children awaiting permanent homes.

Importance of Faith in African American Culture

In data resulting from the National Survey of Black Americansconducted in 1979 to 1980 and funded by the National Institute ofMental Health, religion was found to hold a “central” position inthe lives of African Americans (Taylor, Chatters, Jayakody, &Levin, 1996; Taylor, Jackson, & Chatters, 1997; Taylor, Thornton, &Chatters, 1987). The survey found that 37% of the respondents at-tended church services at least weekly, with an additional 28% at-tending at least once a month, and with fewer than 20% attendingless than once a year or never, while 78% of the respondents re-

Belanger et al. 103

ported praying several times a week (Taylor et al., 1997, p. 122).African Americans participate more frequently in church associa-tions, read the Bible more frequently, and have a higher religiosity(Taylor et al., 1996) than whites do. In fact, Taylor et al. (1987)found that 90% of the African American respondents in their sur-vey stated that the church plays a number of significant roles in theAfrican American community and positively influences their lives.

According to Logan (1996), the church is an integral part of thedistinctive African American culture and ethnic group identitythat has evolved as a reaction to the “crippling effect of slaveryon the social, psychological, and economic growth of U.S. Blacks”(p. 197). The church’s centrality in African American culture is par-tially due to the many functions it has performed throughout his-tory. It was part of the underground railroad during slavery andprovided secular education for children when such education wasunavailable from any other source (McAdoo & Crawford, 1991).It provided and continues to provide a meeting place, a centralsource for communication and even business transactions, and socialization, passing along African American culture and history(Haight, 1998; Taylor et al., 1987), and was one of the few institu-tions owned and controlled entirely by African Americans (Tayloret al., 1987). A number of studies found that religious attendanceand participation relates to status, particularly in the south (Ellison& Sherkat, 1995, 1999; Hunt & Hunt, 1999). Social ties and commu-nalism were found to be significantly greater in African Americanreligious experiences, resulting in higher attendance for AfricanAmericans than for whites (Armbrecht, Johnson, & Matre, 1991),and higher religious involvement was found related to higher self-esteem (Ellison, 1993).

Influence of Faith (Intrinsic Religiosity) on Health and Mental Health

According to Gordon Allport’s (Allport & Ross, 1967) classifica-tion, extrinsic religiosity refers to the use of religion as a meansto personal ends, while intrinsic religiosity (hereinafter referred to


as religiosity) reflects an overreaching commitment that internal-izes beliefs, requiring no other end. Intrinsic religiosity is consis-tently related to positive health and mental health outcomes (Ge-nia & Shaw, 1991; see also, Koenig, McCullough, & Larson, 2001,pp. 118–135). An intrinsic religious orientation has been found tobe related to lower trait anxiety, lower death anxiety, and greaterpurpose in life (Donahue, 1985). In a study of 87 depressed olderadults, after controlling for demographic, medical, and psycho -social covariates, a 10-point increase on the Hoge Intrinsic Reli-giosity Index was associated with a 70% increase in the speed of depression remission (Hoge, 1972; Koenig, George, & Peterson,1998). Numerous other studies have found intrinsic religious mo-tivation to be negatively correlated with perceived stress (King &Schafer, 1992) and spiritual coping strategies positively related tomental health and faster adaptation to stress (Koenig, Pargament,& Nielsen, 1998; Pargament, 1997; Pargament, Kennell, Greven-goed, Hathaway, Newman, & Jones, 1988).

Theoretical Underpinnings of Religious Coping

The way people think about events or their cognitive appraisal ofthe situation, impacts the emotions that follow and resulting be-haviors (Beck, 1976; Ellis & Harper, 1961). According to Newmanand Pargament (1990), religion is part of the cognitive schema and,therefore, part of an individual’s problem solving model. Beliefsystems provide meaning to life events and give spiritual signifi-cance even to trials and setbacks (Berger, 1967); they may providea world view with a sense of coherence (Antonovsky, 1979); andthey may lead to the use of including religious methodology inproblem solving and in making life choices. A religious cognitiveappraisal may result in viewing God as a partner (Pargament et al.,1988), or even participating in a loving relationship with God(Levin, 2001), while redefining problems in constructive- andstrengths-based ways (Pargament et al., 1988), all with positivehealth and mental health outcomes.

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Researchers have found that religious and spiritual copingstrategies are positively related to mental health and faster adapta-tion to stress (Koenig et al., 1998; Pargament, 1997; Pargamentet al., 1988), with religion perhaps moderating the relationship be-tween stress and depression (Friedrich, Cohen, & Wilturner, 1988;Idler & Kasl, 1992; Kendler, Gardner, & Prescott, 1997). In addition,religious beliefs and behaviors are particularly important for cop-ing for African Americans (Conway, 1985–1986; Krause & VanTran, 1989), the elderly, and women (Koenig et al., 2001, p. 94). Forexample, a recent study examined functional impairment in anelderly population as a predictor of depression. While AfricanAmericans in the study experienced higher levels of impairmentthan the whites in the study, they did not experience higher levelsof depression. Instead, they reported higher levels of religiosityand social support, which may have moderated depression (Cum-mings, Neff, & Husaini, 2003). A study of rural African Americanfamilies found that those reporting higher religiosity also reportedusing fewer coercive parenting strategies and experienced fewerstressful events (Wiley, Warren, & Montanelli, 2002). Barth andBerry (1988) also discuss a similar approach to understandingadoptive parent coping mechanisms and stress, discussing stressas a function of the individual’s resources (i.e., ecological system),and the appraisal of the situation and resources.

Parent Stress in Adoption

Adoptive parenting, particularly of special needs children in thechild welfare system, can be very stressful, with parent stress asone of the negative outcomes of adoption (Groze, 1996). McGlone,Santos, Kazama, Fong, and Mueller (2002) examined the psycho-logical stress of adoptive parents. Using the PSI-SF (Abidin, 1995),they found that parents indicated higher than average responsesfor stress, particularly related to the “Difficult Child” and “Parent-Child Dysfunctional Interactions” subscales than the normativesamples. The Child Behavior Checklist (CBC-L; Achenbach &


Edelbrock, 1983) was also completed for each child, finding thattotal CBCL and CBCL internalizing and externalizing scores corre-lated with difficult child subscores. The correlations with theCBCL scores are similar to the findings of Reitman, Currier, andStickle (2002) and other researchers who have found the PSI ChildDomain Scores strongly associated with externalizing behaviors.Barth and Berry (1988) found that externalizing were moststrongly associated with adoption disruption.

Impact of Faith on Adoption Outcomes and Choosing to Adopt

While there is increasing interest in the impact of faith on healthand mental health, and in increasing adoptions of African Amer-ican children in the child welfare system, no studies specificallyexamine the role of faith in increasing adoptions of AfricanAmerican children and reducing the racial disproportionality ofchildren waiting for adoption. Since faith has been shown to im-pact health and mental health, the hypothesis is that faith will re-duce the parent’s stress in adoptive parenting. It is proposed thatadoptive parents with greater faith (higher intrinsic religiosity)consider their faith essential in the decision to adopt. Finally,since the literature stresses the importance of religion in AfricanAmerican culture, it is proposed that African American adoptiveparents will have greater religiosity than will white parents andwill consider faith more essential in adopting than will whiteadoptive parents.

Method

Participants

The study population included all adoptive parents who haveadopted between 1990 (when adoption policy in the state was re-vised) and 2004, inclusive, from Texas Child Protective Services(CPS) Regions 04 and 05 (roughly the area of Beaumont, Texas to

Belanger et al. 107

the Oklahoma border) and from Louisiana’s Office of CommunityServices. This convenience sample was chosen because of proxim-ity and access to conferences and trainings which adoptive par-ents often attend. In April 2004 the East Texas Foster and Adop-tive Parent Conference was held at the campus of Stephen F.Austin State University. All adoptive parents meeting the studycriteria (adopting since 1990) were invited to participate, and30 adoptive parents completed the survey. Participation in thesurvey was voluntary. An additional 55 adoptive parents (includ-ing 14 Bennett Chapel parents) completed surveys at sessions con-ducted or foster/ adoptive parent association meetings. In Septem-ber 2004 the Louisiana Foster and Adoptive Parent Associationinvited the researcher to conduct the survey at their conference;28 parents participated.

Included in the 127 surveys completed were the surveys of14 couples (husband and wife). To remove the resulting “weight-ing”, the survey of only one parent in a couple was retained, re-sulting in a total of 113 surveys of 113 families. The most completesurveys were those of the mothers, and therefore, they were cho-sen to represent the family, possibly resulting in bias. However,there were no discernable differences in responses.

Measures and Procedures

Data were collected using a 91-item survey, which included de-mographic data, information about the family, the childrenadopted, and the adoption, and attendance at religious services.Parent health was measured by a single question asking parentsto rate how much their health has changed since the adoption.Allowable responses ranged from one (It has improved a lot) tofive (It has gotten much worse), with an option to state “I don’tknow/can’t judge.”

The decision to adopt consisted of eight items selected fromthe literature concerning elements of possible importance in theadoptive parent’s decision to adopt. In addition to reasons listedin the literature, it includes religiosity (My faith in God), religious


support (My belief that members of my church would help if Ineeded them), and worker support (My belief that the adoptionworker would help if I needed him/her). Each item was ratedon a five-point scale with possible responses ranging from one (Essential: I wouldn’t have adopted without this) to five (Didn’taffect decision at all).

The survey also included three scales. The Hoge Intrinsic Re-ligiosity Index, a scale composed of 10 items, each rated on afive-point scale, with resulting religiosity scores ranging from10–50 was chosen because of high internal reliability (Cron-bach’s alpha � 0.87 achieved in two separate populations) andtest-retest reliability (91.2% agreement after a six-week interval)and high correlations with ministers’ judgments in two separatetests of validity. The scale is also strongly correlated with All-port’s original intrinsic subscale (0.86) and Feagin’s intrinsicscale (0.87) (Hoge, 1972). In a more recent Duke Hospital studyof 458 patients, Koenig et al. (1998) found high internal reliabil-ity (Cronbach’s alpha � .83).

Parent stress (stress in adoptive parenting) was measured bythe parenting distress subscale of the PSI-SF, a brief version ofAbidin’s (1992, 1995) original Parenting Stress Index. The test haswidely acceptable reliability and validity (Abidin, 1995). To clar-ify the parent’s stress in adoptive parenting versus stress as a re-sult of parenting, the scale was modified slightly, substituting theword adopting for parenting in questions four, five, and eight, withapproval of the author, and determination of researchers at PAR,Inc. that the modifications would not measurably alter psychome-tric properties of the instrument.

Child behavior was measured by the difficult child subscale ofthe PSI-SF. This subscale is strongly associated with externalizingbehavior from the CBC (Achenbach & Edelbrock, 1983; Bendell,Stone, Field, and Goldstein, 1989; Donnenberg & Baker, 1993; Reitman et al., 2002), which has been found to have a significant impact on adoption outcomes (Barth & Berry, 1988; Partridge,Hornby, & McDonald, 1986; Rosenthal & Groze, 1992).

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Results

(1) Controlling for the perceived difficulty in the child’s behavior,adoptive parents’ faith (intrinsic religiosity) will reduce the stressin adoptive parenting, (2) faith (intrinsic religiosity) will be posi-tively related to the adoptive parents’ assessment of the impor-tance of faith adopting, (3) African American parents will rate faithmore essential in adopting than will white parents.

Reliability of Scales

Estimates of internal reliability were examined for each of thescales used, with alpha coefficients as follows: .923 for the difficultchild subscale of the PSI-SF (n � 208; number of items � 12); .902for the parent distress subscale of the PSI-SF (n � 109; number ofitems � 12); .715 for the Scale of Intrinsic Religiosity (Hoge; n �109; number of items � 10). All of the scales have acceptable levelsof reliability.

Description of the Families and Family Outcomes

All of the 113 families are from East Texas and Louisiana. Most ofthe families are rural, with parents married and with foster chil-dren in the home (Table 1). Most of the responding parents areadoptive mothers, with an average age of 48; 42% of the respond-ing parents identified themselves as stay-at-home parents. Of the113 families, 53 (47%) parents responding for the family wereAfrican American, 59 (52%) were white, and one (1%) was His-panic. The Hispanic parent is not included in Table 1.

Religion and religious participation are important to nearly allof the adoptive parents in this study. The vast majority belongs toa religious congregation and attends church weekly, if not severaltimes a week. The parents also score very high on the Hoge Scaleof Intrinsic Religiosity, with an average score of 42 out of 50 pos -sible points, indicating that their faith is indeed central to all oftheir lives. African American parents attended church significantlymore frequently, and score significantly higher than white parents’


TABLE 1Description of Families in the Study and Family Outcomes

DESCRIPTOR AFRICAN AMERICAN WHITE TOTAL SIGNIFICANCE

Number (%) in sample 53 (47%) 59 (52%) 112

average number of children 2.3 2.2 2.2

adopted since 1990

*average number of foster 0.9 1.6 1.4 t � –2.392, df � 108*

children in the home

total number of children in 3.7 3.8 3.8

home

**% families married couple 64% 92% 74% χ2 � 20.928, df � 1**

(vs. not married, divorced,

widowed, separated)

*% responders attended at 81% 95% 88% χ2 � 5.170, df � 1*

least high school

% responders rural 69% 75% 72%

RELIGIOUS DESCRIPTORS

*frequency of religious 4.5 4.1 4.3 t � 2.086, df � 105*

attendance: 1 � never;

2 � 1 or 2x/yr; 3 � 1/mo;

4 � nearly every week;

5 � several time/wk

*faith involves all my life: 1.2 1.4 1.3 t � �2.246, df � 108*

1 � def true; 2 � tends to

be true; 3 � unsure;

4 � tends untrue;

5 � untrue

**nothing as important as 1.2 1.7 1.4 t � �3.375, df � 86**

serving God: 1 � def true;

2 � tends to be true;

3 � unsure; 4 � tends

untrue; 5 � untrue

Belongs to religious congregation 96% 90% 93%

Attends church weekly 91% 78% 86%

*p � .05; **p � .01

agreement with the statements that their faith involves all theirlives, and that nothing is as important as serving God (Table 1).

For 71 (64%), faith was considered essential to their decisionto adopt. Only five parents (5%) indicated that faith did not affecttheir decision at all.

Belanger et al. 111

Nearly all of the adoptions had good parental outcomes. Allbut two parents in the study would advise others to adopt, with87% (90) strongly advising adoption. However, 19% (20) statedthat their health has gotten worse since adopting. Their scores onthe PSI-SF parent distress subscale ranged from no stress at all (12)in their parenting roles to total agreement with all items, indicat-ing the highest stress score possible (60) in parenting.

Description of the Children and Child Outcomes

As discussed previously, there were 226 adopted children in thestudy. Four children were excluded from analyses because of in-complete information in the survey. Almost half of the adoptedchildren in the study were African American, with whites abouta third, biracial children almost 15%, and fewer than 5% Hispanicchildren. Children in the study ranged in age from infant (new-borns) to 18, averaging 8.7 years old. The majority of the children(58%) were males. Most of the children (82%) receive an adoptionsubsidy ranging from $250 per month for the child to more than$500 per month, with an average subsidy of $444. While fewerthan half (40%) of the children in the study were diagnosed withADD, bi- or multiracial children had a significantly more frequentADD diagnosis (55%). Almost all (90%) of the African Americanchildren received a subsidy, on average $464. Hispanic children received the lowest subsidies (Table 2). Differences in frequency ofsubsidy and amount were significant.

There were also differences in the child’s outcomes by race/ethnicity. While children improved in both grades and behaviorsince they came to live with the adoptive families, bi- and multira-cial children were rated by the adoptive parents as improving themost in both grades and behavior.

There were no differences by race/ethnicity for the remainingchild outcomes. Most parents (71%) felt that the adoption had avery positive impact on the family, while an additional 23% feltthat the impact was positive. While 13 (5%) thought the impactwas mixed, 3 (1%) thought the impact was mostly or very nega-


TABLE 2Description of Children in the Study

DESCRIPTOR AFRICAN WHITE HISPANIC BI-/ TOTAL

AMERICAN MULTIRACIAL

Number (%) in sample 106 (48%) 71 (32%) 12 (5%) 33 (15%) 222

* % w/ ADD diagnosis 36 (34%) 35 (49%) 3 (25%) 18 (55%) 92 (41%)*

** % receiving adoption 90 (90%) 52 (78%) 11 (92%) 17 (61%) 170 (77%)

subsidy

*** average subsidy $465 $429 $275 $444 $439***

amount/mo. f � 10.95, df � 3

Child Outcomes: changes

since child came to

live with adoptive

parent

1 � improved a lot;

2 � improved some;

3 � same;

4 � little worse;

5 � much worse

*changes in grades 2.02 2.16 3.20 1.68 2.08*

f � 2.94, df � 3

*changes in behavior 2.06 2.12 2.27 1.42 1.99*

f � 3.17, df � 3

*p � .05; **p � .01; ***p � .001

tive. The adoption was disrupted for only 5 (2%) children. While207 (93%) never had considered ending the adoption, for fewerthan 15 children (7%) was there ever any consideration of endingthe adoption.

Testing the Hypotheses

The centrality of religion in the lives of the adoptive parents wasrelated to less stress in adoptive parenting. Using the SPSS entercommand, the regression was ordered to first account for the vari-ance related to the highest difficult child score for all adopted chil-dren in the family (PSI-SF difficult child subscale), and then a step-wise regression between the perceived change in the parent’sstress (as measured by the PSI-SF parent distress subscale) as the

Belanger et al. 113

dependent variable and parental religiosity (as measured by theHoge Intrinsic Religiosity Index), religious support, and workersupport as the independent variables. The regression was signifi-cant: F(2, 92) � 21.141, p � .01. The stepwise function in SPSS se-lects only those variables that significantly impact the equation(p � .05). There were only two variables and the constant in theequation. In addition to the intervening variable (child behavior),religiosity (R2 � .108) contributed significantly to the equation.Confidence limits for most difficult child were .189 and .425, andfor religiosity �.670 and �.209, indicating that greater religiosity isnegatively related to stress in adopting, as hypothesized, account-ing for 10.8% of the variance in stress scores.

Faith, as measured by the Hoge Scale of Intrinsic religiosity,is highly correlated with the parents’ assessment of the impor-tance of faith in adopting, as measured by the single question inwhich parents rated importance on a scale of one to five, withone � essential: “I wouldn’t have adopted without this” to five� not essential “Didn’t affect my decision at all” (r � �.45, p �.001). The negative direction reflects the fact that higher scoreson the Hoge scale indicate greater faith (religiosity), whilehigher scores in the assessment of importance in adoption indi-cate less importance.

TABLE 3Regression Analysis: Impact of Religiosity on Stress

VARIABLE B SE B BETA

Step 1

Most difficult child 0.315 0.064 .458**

Step 2


Religiosity –.439 0.116 –.328**

Note. R2 � .201 for Step 1; R2 change � .108 for Step 2

**p � .01

TABLE 4Regression Analysis: Impact of Church Attendance on Health

VARIABLE B SE B BETA

Step 1


Step 2


Church Attendance –.273 0.102 –.260**

Note. R2 � .101 for Step 1; R2 change v � .067 for Step 2

**p � .01


There were no significant differences on the rating of impor-tance of faith in the decision to adopt. However, the vast major-ity of all adoptive parents in this sample rated faith as essentialto adopting.

Post-Hoc Analysis

Based on the research linking increased life expectancy with regu-lar attendance at religious services (Hummer, Rogers, Nam, & El-lison, 1999), a post-hoc regression analysis was performed, addingfrequency of church attendance as an independent variable to thesecond step of the analysis, in addition to religiosity, worker sup-port, and religious support, after controlling for the most difficultchild behavior.

Church attendance was found to significantly contribute to theequation, explaining an additional 6.7% of the variance in parenthealth.

Additional post-hoc analysis found that faith (religiosity) wassignificantly related to both the total number of children adopted(r � .13, p � .05) and to the total number of children, including fos-ter, adoptive and biological children, living in the home (r � .187,p � .01).

Belanger et al. 115

Discussion

Limitations

The study used a convenience sample, drawn from participants invarious foster parent and/or postadoption trainings. While fosterparents are required to attend various training sessions, adoptiveparents have no postadoption training requirements. The sample,then, may have an overrepresentation of foster/adoptive parents,or of adoptive parents who are more involved, more successful, ormore interested in training. These people may also be more reli-gious, more active in their congregations, and have received morehelp from their worker. The study tried to control for this possiblebias by using regression equations that looked at the variance ofthe independent and dependent variables within the sample. Inaddition, the study used a cross-sectional design that may allowtemporal or temporary factors to influence the data and findings.For example, ratings made at a conference may differ from ratingsprovided after an evening of cooking, cleaning and managing chil-dren with special needs. The sample size was limited, barely ade-quate for the analyses completed. A larger sample would allow formore a more intricate study, for example the examination of inter-action effects among variables. Finally, the sample did not allowfor comparisons with adoptive families from other regions, or withnonadoptive families. Both would have been helpful to determinewhether adoptive parents are more religious and find their faithessential to adopting, than nonadoptive parents.

Religiosity and Parent Stress

This study found that religiosity was inversely related to the par-ent’s stress in their parenting role, that is, religiosity predictedlower stress in adoptive parenting. The parenting distress subscaleof the PSI-SF measures the amount of stress a parent experiencesas a function of personal characteristics and situations related tothe role of being a parent/adoptive parent. It is only one part of


total parent stress. The subscale was chosen as that part of parentalstress theorized as impacted by religion. In a study of 35 adoptedchildren and their 25 sets of parents, McGlone et al. (2002) foundhigher overall stress for the parents, although lower scores on theParenting Distress subscale than the norm, similar to the findingsof McCarthy, Waterman, Burge, and Edelstein (1999). The research -ers suggested possible causes for the lower scoring as effectiveprogram support, effective recruitment or screening of adoptiveparents, or issues in understating stress. However, religiosity maybe the missing factor that accounts for these scores. Religion is veryimportant and central in the lives of adoptive parents in the cur-rent study, suggesting that adoptive parents may actually havehigher religiosity than other parents. If religion is more central inthe lives of adoptive parents, and impacts parents’ stress, it mayaccount for lower parent distress scores than anticipated in boththis and McGlone et al.’s study. This study, while not examiningspecific coping strategies, supports prior research that links reli-giosity with positive outcomes, extending the findings to positiveoutcomes in adoption. In addition, it adds to the previous litera-ture base by analyzing the specific components of both stress andreligion to determine which aspects of religion reduce specificcomponents of parental stress.

The study also found correlations between religiosity (faith)and the number of children adopted, and the total number of chil-dren living in the home, supporting and lending validity to theratings of the essential nature of faith in choosing to adopt.

Based on previous research that found regular attendance at religious services to be associated with a life expect ancy increase ofeight years (Hummer et al., 1999), a post-hoc regression equationwas conducted on the survey results in the current study. For pur-poses of this analysis, church attendance was included in step twoof the regression equation as an independent variable. Churchattendance was found to be a significant predictor of health. Thisfinding supports the extensive research highlighting the diversityof measures and meaning in the study of religion (Koenig et al.,

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2001). While religious support and religiosity do not impact healthdirectly, church attendance is associated with improved health.

Adoption, the Hopeful Option: A Possible Latent VariableLinking Religiosity, Parent Distress and the Choice to Adopt

One possible explanation for high religiosity and lower parent dis-tress combined with greater difficulties in the child behavior is hope.Hope is the belief that “something positive, which does not presentlyapply to one’s life, could still materialize” (Lazarus, 1990, p. 653).

The parents are told in preadoption training of the serious dif-ficulties their child or children have and will continue to have afteradoption, and yet they adopt anyway, a most hopeful decision.These parents find their faith in God central to their lives and essen-tial to their choice to adopt, also a belief which may be viewed asfull of hope. While they rate their children’s behavior as most dif-ficult, their stress in parenting, as measured by the items in theparent distress subscale, is lower than the norm. Snyder, Sympson,Ytzasco, Borders, Babyak, and Higgins (1996) found hope to becorrelated with positive thoughts, while Elliott, Witty, Herrick, andHoffman (1991) found hope correlated with superior coping andless depression, resulting from an interior dialogue with oneself,very similar to the cognitive model proposed for the impact ofreligion on adoption outcomes.

These parents possibly are inherently more hopeful than thenorm, which results in or may be essential in their choice to adoptand take the risk that something positive will result from adoptionof a very difficult child. This hope could also result in religiosityand reduced stress. Or, in other words, instead of religiosity influ-encing (reducing) stress, it is possible that a parent’s hopefulnessimpacts the choice to adopt, religiosity, and parent distress.

Reducing Disproportionality: The Faithful Option

In this study, 53 African American families adopted 98 AfricanAmerican and 10 biracial children, providing substantial support tothe position that “[m]inority families will and do adopt” (McRoy


et al., 1997, p. 96), while faith in God was the single greatest reasonfor adopting. The Bennett Chapel families who inspired the studyexpressed that faith was their sole motive for adopting, and self- recruited for adoption (Hollandsworth, 2001). Since faith is relatedto improved adoption outcomes and improved health, it may bewise to look for potential adoptive families of color in churches,and particularly in rural churches; this may be instrumental in re-ducing disproportionality in “waiting” children, that segment ofthe child welfare population most disproportionate. In addition,African American parents in this study attended church more fre-quently, and rated “Nothing is as important as serving God” and“My faith involves all my life” as “definitely true” significantlymore than do their white counterparts.

Religious Cultural Competence in Recruitment

The vast majority of the sample has very strong religious beliefs, orintrinsic religiosity. God is central to their lives, central in theiradoptions, and of considerable importance in their decision toadopt. If religion is very important to the adoptive families, if reli-giosity reduces the amount of stress that an adoptive parents feels,and if religiosity reduces racial disproportionality by adoptinglarge numbers of special needs African American waiting children,then states may want to examine their adoption recruitment strate-gies. For example, current strategies rely heavily on marketing-style approaches even in churches, explaining benefits to parentsor asking for the help of a church. Religious families may need adifferent message. If serving God is most important to them, mar-keting strategies that try to capitalize on agency or self interest areoff target. The target instead should be God’s intent. A culturallycompetent approach may require a strategy that asks the churchfor discernment, with the agency simply empowering the familiesto act on their desire to accomplish God’s will, by providing infor-mation, training, and ultimately the adoptive child, but only ifthis is God’s will for them. This model of adoption is more similarto the community practitioner role in locality development, in

Belanger et al. 119

which the worker is enabler, servant, responsive to the commu-nity’s agenda and empowering the community to create its owngoals and objectives.

Religious Cultural Competence in Post-Adoption Services

In conclusion, the findings that faith is related to reduced stress inadoptive parenting can be linked to Pargament’s work on religiouscoping, suggesting that postadoption training might include train-ing on successful religious coping strategies. Training could includemethods to understand the child’s and parent(s)’s appraisal ofGod as positive or negative, training to help parents and childrendiscover possibly conflicting appraisals, and methods to evaluatethe appraisal in relation to adoption outcomes.

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Documents

The Role of Worker Support and Religious Support in African American Special Needs Adoption: The Bennett Chapel Experience