Collaborative Approaches to Adoption for Children with Complex Needs

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is funding up to three projects, each worth between $1.5 million and $2.15 million, to study how child welfare systems can help children and youth with complex needs find permanent homes through adoption. The focus is on collaborative, system-level efforts to recruit, train, support, and retain adoptive families for children who are harder to place, such as older youth, sibling groups, or children with significant medical, emotional, or behavioral challenges. Projects must be led by researchers who either work inside a child welfare agency or partner closely with one or more agencies. The idea is that researchers and child welfare staff work together to identify promising approaches, study how they work in practice, and evaluate whether they actually help children achieve permanency. The funding agency is especially interested in collaborations that involve Medicaid Section 1115 Research and Demonstration Projects, private adoption agencies, or community- and faith-based organizations. Each project has three core expectations. First, you will study how the model works in practice, meaning an implementation study that looks at what happens on the ground. Second, you will evaluate the effectiveness of the approach. Third, you will use the most rigorous research designs, methods, and analytic techniques that are appropriate for your research questions. Projects should build on existing research evidence and contribute knowledge that can be generalized beyond a single site. The Administration for Children and Families (ACF), which sits within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, oversees this funding. ACF is the federal agency responsible for child welfare, foster care, and adoption programs across the United States. It administers billions of dollars in grants each year to state, tribal, and local agencies, as well as nonprofit organizations. This particular funding opportunity reflects a broader federal push to use evidence-based practices in child welfare and to strengthen the adoptive family pipeline for children who wait the longest for permanency. The work will take place in the United States, where child welfare systems are organized at the state and county level. This means researchers will need to navigate different state laws, funding structures, and agency cultures. Living costs vary widely by state, averaging $1,200 to $2,200 per month depending on housing, health insurance, and campus meal plans. For international researchers, F-1 visa holders can work up to 20 hours per week on-campus during academic terms and can apply for CPT or OPT for off-campus industry training. The U.S. offers vibrant campus cultures, world-class university research infrastructure, and varied regional climates ranging from coastal to continental.