Twenty-six years ago, when DeeannaMarie Wallace and her husband, Randy, became foster parents, it was uncommon for foster parents to adopt, she said.

"In those days, foster parents weren't allowed to adopt. We were told, 'Don't expect to adopt,' " said Wallace, of Wai'anae.

Instead, foster children cycled through the child welfare system, moving from one foster home to the next until they turned 18, she said.

"So much has changed," she said.

Since then, the Wallaces have raised nine adopted children and their two biological sons. They've also founded a nonprofit adoption agency called HOPE INC (an acronym for "In the Name of Christ"), which helped to find homes for 12 children last year.

While HOPE INC's mission is to help find permanent and loving homes for foster children, Wallace says the focus is on helping older children and children with special needs get placed with a family.

"These are children who might not otherwise get adopted," she said.

Placing infants and young children in permanent homes is hard enough, said Lillian Koller, director of the state Department of Human Services. But placing older children and teenagers often feels like an insurmountable challenge.

On any given day, 2,100 children are in the foster care system. Currently, about 150 of those children are in need of adoption, Koller said. The vast majority of those children are between the ages of 6 and 18, generally considered the most difficult age group to place with permanent families.

"Every state struggles with this. This is always the challenge. But instead of accepting the fact that these children may end up 'aging out,' instead of giving up on them, we're escalating the efforts to find them a family," Koller said.

Aging out occurs when a foster child reaches 18 and leaves the system without a family.

The state has developed various ways to help hard-to-place foster children. From aggressively attempting to place them with relatives to community outreach to eliminating "financial disincentives," Koller says the state is making progress.

For example, last year the state revised a requirement for adoption support that Koller says kept foster parents from adopting. Essentially, the state gave foster parents financial support for each foster child, but that support would disappear if the parents decided to adopt. The rules were changed to allow adopted parents to receive financial support as well.

"There are real financial disincentives that prevent parents from adopting," she said.

Foster parents receive about $529 a month per child in support, but that amount can increase to about $1,099 based on the child's needs.

Adoptions in Hawai'i have risen over the years. In 2004, there were 354 adoptions. The next year, adoptions increased by 22 percent, to 431. So far this year, there have been 438 adoptions, representing a 46 percent increase over the past seven years, Koller said.

Those increases were enough to earn the state a federal incentive of $500,000 last year.

And this year, the state's efforts to improve child welfare earned it the 2007 Adoption Excellence Award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Still, state officials acknowledge improvement is needed, and point toward the nearly 300 foster children who "age out" of the system every year.

These teens are less likely to complete high school, are less likely to end up in college and more often turn to drugs or crime or end up homeless.

After Wallace and her husband moved to Hawai'i in 1996, they adopted two sisters, 13-year-old Ester and 8-year-old Rachelle. She said the challenges of raising pre-teens or teenagers can often scare people aware from adopting older children.

"A lot of families are nervous about bringing a child into their home who is already half grown, has their own opinions," she said. "But every child deserves to have a loving family."

Koller said while the state attempts to provide some assistance for foster children who age out of the system, it is not a replacement for a family.

"They don't deserve what happened to them. They not only need a family when they are young, but they deserve a loving and trusting relationship for life," she said.

Reach Loren Moreno at lmoreno@honoluluadvertiser.com.