MichiganRadio

Adoptions Increase in Michigan ANN ARBOR, MI (Michigan Radio) - Better communication has led to an increase in adoptions in thirteen Michigan counties.

It was Michigan Supreme Court Justice Maura Corrigan's idea: All parties involved with adoption should be talking to each other.

Dan Wright is director of Child Welfare Services.

He says his agency and the Department of Human Services hosted a forum last year for 13 counties with the largest adoption needs. They invited lawyers, guardians, caseworkers and others involved with child protection.

"So we wanted those teams to come together, and we provided them with a list of cases in which there were children who had been waiting more than a year for an adoption, even though an adoptive parent had been identified," Wright says.

It worked. Adoptions increased 14 percent in those counties.

Wright says more than five thousand children are available for adoption in Michigan.
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