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Digital technology has become a valuable tool in the adoption recruitment efforts of State child welfare agencies and the national effort as a whole. In the past, State agencies relied on a limited number of resources to recruit adoptive families for special needs children. Commonly used were photobooks that could prove difficult to maintain and update on a regular basis; newspaper announcements and television spotlights, such as “Wednesday’s Child,” which only have the capability of featuring a few children at a time and adoption fairs, which are not always easily accessible to families. While beneficial to the recruitment process, these techniques tend to have limitations in the size of the audience they can draw and the number of children who can be featured at a given time. With the advancement of technology, more State agencies have incorporated the use of the Internet and digital imaging to create and maintain online adoption photolistings of children as a better means of recruitment.

What is Digital Imaging?
Digital Imaging is a technological tool, which allows users to capture digital photos or transform [by means of scanning] traditional photographs or other documents into high-quality, easily accessible graphic images. These images, which can easily be organized and stored into files, can be retrieved later or hosted on Internet sites. The use of digital imaging has revolutionalized the way in which organizations are able to handle vital information.

How Can Digital Imaging Be Useful to State Child Welfare Adoption Programs?
Digital imaging has become a useful tool in creating adoption photolisting websites. These websites feature photographs of special needs children who are eligible for adoption, but are often harder to place with adoptive families.

Currently, there is a national campaign to promote the adoption of special needs children through a number of initiatives. AdoptUSKids.org, a service of the Children’s Bureau, is a secure national photolisting service for children awaiting adoption across the United States, and within US territories and tribal nations. This photolisting service partners with State child welfare agencies to display the digital photographs and profiles of waiting children on its website. Presently, an average of 150 placements a month are made with the help of AdoptUSKids.org.

Likewise, many State child welfare agencies find it useful to host their own adoption photolisting website, in addition to collaborating with the national effort. Generally, each State conforms to its own standards when posting digital photographs on its website. However, States may be interested in alternative means of capturing and posting quality photographs of children.

In an effort to present State agencies with technological best practices for digital imaging and adoption photolisting, this report will highlight the practices used by AdoptUSkids.org and the Pennsylvania Adoption Exchange (PAE).

AdoptUsKids.org Adoption Photolisting Best Practices
AdoptUSKids.org regularly receives photograph submissions from State child welfare agencies to post on the national photolisting site. In response, the Quality Child Data Sub-Committee of the Adoption Work Group for the New National Adoption Photolisting Internet Website developed best practices for receiving photographs of children. For starters, photographs taken of the children should be realistic and age appropriate representations of the children and show positive attributes such as the child smiling. Photographs should also stress the importance of the child’s face, as captured by a headshot. Additionally, photographs should be clear, in color, and be taken against a plain or neutral background. To protect the privacy of the child photos should not include any identifying clothing or information.

AdoptUSKids.org accepts both digital and hard copy photos to be scanned for posting on the website. Traditional photographs should be scanned at 100% of the original photo size to preserve the quality and dimensions of the original. The scanning specifications recommended by AdoptUSKids.org include scanning at a resolution between 150 to 300 dpi (dots per inch) (size varies depending on whether output device is a monitor or printer). The physical size of the image should not be less than 300 pixels wide. Additionally, AdoptUSKids.org prefers to receive digital images as bitmaps, TIFF’s or JPEG’s for posting on the website. All digital images are then sized, compressed and converted by AdoptUSkids.org for best display on the website.

If you have questions about these requirements, please call the Adoption Exchange Association at 1-800-901-6911 and ask to speak with a graphics or photo specialist. You can also email your questions to photos@adoptuskids.org.

Pennsylvania’s Adoption Photolisting Best Practices
In 2003, AdoptUsKids.org listed Pennsylvania as the State with the most placements (227) of children registered on the AdoptUsKids.org photolisting site. Accordingly, the Pennsylvania Adoption Exchange (PAE), part of the Statewide Adoption Network (SWAN), offers best practices for posting digital photographs of children on its adoption photolisting website http://www.adoptpakids.org/paeswan.asp.

For starters, PAE uses the same technical standard for all photos posted on the website. It currently accepts any photograph format (except black and white), but believes the best quality photos are those taken professionally, (e.g., school, a professional studio like Sears or through a “photo shoot” set up through the PAE office.) Next, all photographs, except those sent electronically, are scanned and saved as JPEG files at a resolution of 72 dpi (dots per inch) (appropriate size for an image displayed on a monitor) and a 150-pixel width.

The children’s photographs are then placed on the PAE adoption photolisting site, as well as sent to AdoptUSKids.org along with a biography of the child, including name and age. PAE also has a tracking tool in place to monitor the number of hits made to the site on a daily basis, and includes a link on its website to refer interested parties to the appropriate social worker’s contact information. Lastly, PAE’s process includes providing weekly updates to the site, which consists of adding new information or updating existing profiles as necessary. Their goal is to have the site as current as possible at all times, so that families making inquiries are more confident that a child is still available.

For more information about the technical standards being used by the Pennsylvania Adoption Exchange, please contact Karen A. Lollo of SWAN PAE at klollo@state.pa.us.

We hope that the Tips, Tools, and Trends series will serve to stimulate an exchange of ideas and information among States and between systems and program staff. Your feedback is important to us. If you have additional information on the topic presented in this sheet, or if you have any comments or suggestions regarding its presentation or content, please contact Tom Wetterhan of Xtria, formerly Ellsworth Associates Inc., at (703) 821-3090 x250 or tomw@xtria.com.