Building Access Through Partnership: Centene Invests in Illinois TAC Cohort for 2026

Building Access Through Partnership:
Centene Invests in Illinois TAC Cohort for 2026

The National Center for Adoption Competent Mental Health Services is proud to partner with Centene to facilitate a Training for Adoption Competency (TAC) cohort in Illinois in 2026 which will launch in April 2026.  TAC is the nation’s premiere assessment-based certificate program for training mental health practitioners and developing adoption competency skills. Through classroom and remote instruction, as well as clinical case consultation, TAC students master key clinical skills that support adopted children and their foster, adoptive and kinship families.   

Centene’s investment in TAC is well-timed. The Center for Adoption Support and Education (C.A.S.E.) released two landmark research reports in December 2025 that provide the strongest evidence to date that adoption-competent mental health services deliver measurably better outcomes for adoptive families—and that far too few families can access them. 

“Birth parents, adoptive parents, adoptees, and kinship caregivers—engage in mental health services at rates 2.5 to 3 times higher than the general U.S. population.”

The new data, collected through a nationwide survey and a multi-state effectiveness study, show that families who engaged with TAC-trained clinicians—clinicians who have completed C.A.S.E.’s rigorous evidence-based, accredited Training for Adoption Competency (TAC) program—report stronger therapeutic alliances, higher satisfaction across all dimensions of treatment, more adoption-relevant care, and improved family outcomes. 

At the same time, the national survey reveals that families across the adoption kinship network—including birth parents, adoptive parents, adoptees, and kinship caregivers—engage in mental health services at rates 2.5 to 3 times higher than the general U.S. population, but face significant barriers to adoption-competent care. Just 21.84% of respondents rated their clinicians as adoption competent, with adoptees facing the steepest access challenges.