I, too, am appalled. My heart breaks to read of such abuse. I sometimes think we haven't traveled far from Dickens' time when children were chattels. But please allow me to weigh in.
Once children are adopted there is no oversight per the Child Welfare Act of 1980. An adopted child has the same legal standing as a child born to a family. Adoption stipends--which are paid to the parents but are negotiated considering the child's specific needs follow the child wherever the family moves and a medical card is issued in the state of residence. States continue AAP until age 18, and states can choose whether to extend the payment to age 21 for special needs children. Former President Bush signed a bill into law which will extend all payments through age 21 for special needs children by 2014. The program is federally mandated and funded with a federal "patch" and with a co-pay equal to the current Medicaid co-pay for each state. States' payments are not equalized and there is always pending legislation concerning that issue. Each state has a minimum AAP payment and then there are various ways of determining specialized rates for children with different levels of challenges.
I have no idea why OK DHS did not investigate when older siblings called. That should have been a waving red flag. FWIW, OK has never had a stellar reputation with the adoption advocates in the US. I'm sad to say that I used to caution anyone from adopting from that state as they had a very poor track record with the children I worked with.
Representing the adoption community as an adoptive parent and being a long time advocate of appropriate adoption assistance per the federal law, I have to beg to differ that it is "about the money". Evil is evil, plain and simple. Just as some teachers, coaches, and clergy can be evil while others are fabulous, the same goes for adoptive parents. Our family received adoption assistance for all eight of our special needs children through their 21st birthday and it was absolutely necessary to pay for all the therapy, non-covered medical and pharmaceutical expenses, special training, special diets, property damage and specialized respite that our children required. There are many variables in the negotiations. The program allowed my husband and I to parent full time 24 hours per day for 17 years. Adoption assistance can be set at a rate equivalent to but no more than the appropriate foster care payment for a child and their is no means test based on family income. There's no means based test as I fought in Sacramento, Salem and Washington DC along with my co-advocates for over five years on this issue alone. The federal mandate is clear. It states that all financial disincentives SHALL be removed from the action of adopting a waiting or special needs child. Shall be...
The program was designed as an incentive to move 100s of thousands of children out of foster care and into permanent homes as it was proven by study after study (check with me if you'd like links) to cost the American taxpayer 1/7 the cost of foster care, dollar for dollar. The outcome for legally adopted children is also far brighter than for children who age out of foster care taking into consideration education, crime, teen pregnancy, and drug use.
As I stated above, once a child is adopted the child is treated the same as a birth child legally and there is no oversight and no accounting--only a yearly re-certification of need. For facts about the incredible success of the AAP program, please check out the North American Council on Adoptable Children site for fact sheets:
http://www.nacac.org/
http://www.nacac.org/adoptionsubsidy/adoptionsubsidy.html (an excellent overview of the program)
My prayers are with those children tonight. It always cuts me to the quick to hear that an adoptive family has committed vile acts. This is my chosen life and has filled my life with incredible joy and fulfillment.