Merced County HSA receives national adoption award

Merced County’s adoption program received a prestigious national award for excellence, making huge strides from where the program stood three years ago.

The 2014 Adoption Excellence Award was given to the Merced County Human Services Agency’s branch of Social Services for extraordinary contributions to providing adoption and other permanent positive outcomes for children in foster care, county officials said.

Merced County HSA was the only county agency and child welfare system in the nation to receive the award, said county spokesman Mike North.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services established the Adoption Excellence Awards Program in 1997 to recognize accomplishments in achieving permanent, positive outcomes for children in foster care awaiting adoption.

“The credit for this award goes to the dedicated and determined staff of the Social Services branch,” HSA Director Ana Pagan said in a news release. “They continue to work together for the benefit of families and children, and I am very pleased that our staff received this national honor recognizing their hard work. They deserve it.”

Laura De Cocker and Alexandra Pierce, deputy directors at Merced County HSA, represented the agency at the awards ceremony in Washington, D.C.

Three years ago, Merced County HSA was underperforming in all adoption measures, North said. The HSA worked with the California Department of Social Services to develop a detailed improvement plan to focus on children, eliminate bureaucratic delays and use data to track accomplishment of goals.

The resulting improvements led to the HSA receiving the 2014 award. Merced County HSA surpassed standards set by the government to encourage child welfare agencies to move quickly on adoptions.

The federal standard for adoptions finalized within 24 months of the child being available for adoption is 36.6 percent. Merced County HSA’s adoptions finalized within 24 months stands at 65.6 percent.

The federal standard for the median length of time to adoption is 27.3 months. Merced’s median time is 18 months.

This story was originally published December 20, 2014 at 11:00 PM with the headline "Merced County HSA receives national adoption award."