Barriers in permanency planning for medically fragile children: Drug affected children and HIV infected children

Abstract

This article discusses the problems of medically fragile children, drug affected and/or HIV infected. Passage of the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 markedly increased the number of these children in foster care. The specific barriers to permanency planning for this group of children are discussed and include interviews with staff people, review of the literature and integration of material from pilot studies of families fostering and adoping children with HIV. © 1994 Human Sciences Press, Inc.