"Kentucky's inspector general is investigating complaints that some state child protection officials are using foster children as "bartering items" in an adoption push that a recent report equated to the "black-market selling of children."

Veteran state social workers and other professionals who work with vulnerable families allege that, under federal pressure to increase the number of Kentucky foster children who are adopted, some administrators in the Cabinet for Health and Family Services are inappropriately recommending to courts that the rights of biological parents be terminated."