As used in this compact, unless the context clearly requires a different construction:

(1)  “Adoption assistance” means the payment or payments for maintenance of a child, which payment or payments are made or committed to be made pursuant to the adoption assistance program established by the laws of a party state.

(2)  “Adoption assistance state” means the state that is signatory to an adoption assistance agreement in a particular case.

(3)  “Child with special needs” means a minor who has not yet attained the age at which the state normally discontinues children’s services or twenty-one, where the state determines that the child’s mental or physical handicaps warrant the continuation of assistance, for whom the state has determined the following:

(a)  That the child cannot or should not be returned to the home of his parents.

(b)  That there exists with respect to the child a specific factor or condition, such as his ethnic background, age, or membership in a minority or sibling group, or the presence of factors such as medical condition or physical, mental, or emotional handicaps, because of which it is reasonable to conclude that such child cannot be placed with adoptive parents without providing adoption assistance.

(c)  That, except where it would be against the best interests of the child because of such factors as the existence of significant emotional ties with prospective adoptive parents while in the care of such parents as a foster child, a reasonable but unsuccessful effort has been made to place the child with appropriate adoptive parents without providing adoption assistance payments.

(4)  “Parents” means either the singular or plural of the word “parent”.

(5)  “Residence state” means the state of which the child is a resident by virtue of the residence of the adoptive parents.

(6)  “State” means a state of the United States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, or a territory or possession of the United States.

Acts 1991, No. 235, §16, eff. Jan. 1, 1992.