Renaming the Public Private Adoption Initiative (PPAI)

We need your input!

The Minnesota Department of Human Services contracts with private child-placing agencies to provide adoption and adoption-related services to children under state guardianship or Tribal jurisdiction. This contract program, the Public Private Adoption Initiative (PPAI), began as an initiative in 1998 to increase the number of families available to adopt children under guardianship of the commissioner.

Over the years, the PPAI program has expanded to provide services to relatives and kin, and services to youth up to age 21. Additionally, as noted in the June 2022 Permanency Support Update, a 2022 law change highlights the importance of maintaining relative connections, and the current permanency preference is permanency placement with a relative.

The PPAI program continues to explore ways to expand services to meet the needs of children, youth and families involved in the child-welfare system. Given these shifts from recent legislation and plans for continued expansion, and the fact that the once "initiative" is now an established program, it is time to consider a new name that encompasses all the services the PPAI agencies provide.

Provide an idea for a new name in the ideas board below!

This engagement site will be open for 30 days for stakeholders to submit ideas. We will announce the new name in a future edition of the monthly Child Safety and Permanency Support Update newsletter. If you're not already receiving this newsletter, click here to subscribe.

Thanks for your time and input for the PPAI program!

- MN Department of Human Services Permanency Support Unit