By Frederic Reamer, PhD and Deborah Siegel, PhD, LISCSW
 

	Introduction		Legal Risk Adoptions
	Types of Adoption		Deciding Whether to Pursue Adoption
	Foster Parenting Option		Post-Adoption Challenges
	Public Agency Adoptions		How Social Workers Help

 

Introduction

Children need parents.  When a birthparent is unable to parent a child, adoption creates a new family for the child.  In adoption the birthparent’s parental rights are legally terminated and another person becomes the child’s legal parent.

Types of Adoption

Birthparents who may be planning an adoption and prospective adoptive parents need to know the range of adoption options and decide which route to adoption best fits their needs. Adoption agencies and professionals have very different philosophies and practices.

Adoptees may be newborns or older, born in the U.S. or abroad, or vary in race, culture, and ethnicity. Adoptive parents may be married, single, gay, or lesbian. Adoptions may be facilitated by public agencies, private agencies, attorneys, or adoption facilitators.  Adoption laws vary by state.

Every state has a public child welfare agency whose mission is to protect children from abuse and neglect. Sometimes children who have been removed from the home of their biological parent(s) cannot be safely returned and the state terminates parental rights without the birthparent’s consent. In other instances, a birthparent whose children are in state custody voluntarily terminates parental rights. In either case, the child is freed for adoption.

As a result of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, whenever a child enters foster care the state must simultaneously (1) provide services to the birthparents so that they and the child can be safely reunited if at all possible, and P(2) begin the process of freeing the child for adoption. These simultaneous activities are called concurrent planning.

Foster Parenting Option

Prospective parents who want to adopt a child through the public child welfare system may first become the child’s foster parent.  A foster parent is not the same as an adoptive parent because a child who is in foster care is in the state’s custody, while an adoptive parent has all the legal rights and responsibilities of any other parent.  When a prospective adoptive parent first becomes a foster parent, it may be in the hope that the child will ultimately be freed for adoption.

Public Agency Adoptions

Many children available for adoption via public agencies have special needs. Newborns may have been placed in foster care at birth due to prenatal exposure to alcohol, illegal drugs, and other substances. Virtually all children in the public child welfare system have been abused and/or neglected and have experienced out-of-home placement. Some need to be adopted as sibling groups. Others have physical challenges, mental health issues, and learning differences. Many are children of color and many are teenagers.

Generally, adoptions via public child welfare agencies are publicly funded. Adoption subsidies may be  available to help families who adopt children with special needs that require special education, counseling, extensive medical care, respite, and other services. An adoption subsidy is available only to families that have a written agreement, before finalization of the adoption, specifying the exact nature of the subsidy.

Private Adoptions

There are many ways to adopt a child via private agencies. Private agencies may specialize in the adoption of healthy infants; children of color; children with special medical, emotional, and educational needs; and children born abroad. Agency fees vary considerably; fees to adopt children who are older, of color, have special needs, and are in sibling groups tend to be lower.

Some private agencies do what is called “identified adoption.” This means the prospective adoptive parent and birthparent find one another (sometimes through advertising or word of mouth) and then locate an adoption agency to obtain counseling and legal services.

Adoption attorneys and “facilitators” also locate children for prospective adoptive parents, help birthparents find adoptive families, and assist with identified adoptions. These are called independent adoptions. Some state laws prohibit independent adoptions and require that all adoptions be handled by licensed agencies.

Some private agencies, attorneys, and facilitators specialize in international adoption, that is, adoptions of children born outside the United States. International adoption agencies specialize in specific countries or regions. The social, medical, financial, political, and legal issues vary by country.

Lesbian, gay, single, and older prospective adoptive parents can be served by public or private agencies, attorneys, and facilitators. These groups may encounter discriminatory policies and practices.

Legal Risk Adoptions

“Legal risk” adoptions are available through private agencies, facilitators, and attorneys, just as they are through public child welfare agencies. In “legal risk” placements, a child is placed in the pre-adoptive home before the birthparent’s parental rights have been legally terminated. Hence, some legal risk placements fall through before the adoption is finalized, because birthparents or pre-adoptive parents have a change of heart. This is likely to be traumatic for everyone involved.

There is a federal adoption tax credit to help qualified families offset adoption expenses. Adoption insurance may be available through the private sector to help reimburse prospective parents for adoption-related expenses if an adoption falls through before it is finalized.

Deciding Whether to Pursue Adoption

Most people think of adoption as a happy event – a child who needs a family and a parent who wants a child are joined. While this is true, it is also true, and often unrecognized, that there is no adoption without loss – the child loses a birth family, the birthparent loses a child, and the adoptive parent loses the dream of a child by birth. These losses must be recognized and coped with throughout life. Pre-adoption counseling, education, and support are useful in helping birthparents and adoptive parents prepare themselves for the journey ahead.

Every state requires prospective adoptive parents to go through a home study conducted by a licensed agency. The home study is designed to help parents examine their feelings, beliefs, motivations, and readiness for adoptive parenting. Agencies differ in the pre-adoption counseling and education they offer, how much support they provide in the home study process, and how much they encourage or permit the birth family and adoptive family to know about and have on-going contact with each other. The cost of the home study varies by agency.

Prospective adoptive parents must ask themselves many important questions:

• Am I ready to love a child to whom I have not given birth?
• How comfortable am I accepting the fact that the birthparents exist and will always be important to the child, whether I know the birthparents or not?
• Am I prepared to meet the birthparents, exchange identifying information with them, and have some form of ongoing communication with them for the child’s sake?
• Will I support my child if she or he decides to search for and reunite with the birthparents?
• Is my primary motivation for international adoption my wish to keep the birthparents far away from my family?
• How ready am I to become a transracial/transcultural family that assertively pursues activities linking my child to her or his ethnic/racial/cultural group of origin?
• What ages, ethnicities, and special needs can I accept and cope with?
• What risks am I able to take (for example, adopting a child who received no prenatal care, was exposed in utero to substance abuse, has learning disabilities, was conceived by rape, or comes from a birth family that has a history of mental illness)?
• What financial risks am I able and willing to take in pursuing adoption? How much money can I spend on the adoption process?
• How able am I to enter into a “legal risk” adoption?
• Am I open to adopting a sibling group?
• What kind of wait can I handle?

Honest self-exploration as one grapples with these challenging issues is crucial. It is ill advised simply to choose the fastest, most affordable route to adoption.

Post-Adoption Challenges

Adoptive parenthood involves issues that parents by birth do not face. Adoption is a lifelong process, not an event; predictable adoption issues emerge at each stage of life, for adoptive parent, birthparent, and child. Post-adoption support services need to be available throughout the adoptive family’s life, including family, individual and parent/child counseling; support groups; post-adoption education; respite care; and special education. Many adoptive families and birthparents struggle to locate the specialized services they need.

How Social Workers Help

Social workers can provide birthparents, adoptive parents, and children with:

• Information about adoption options
• Information about financial and legal issues and resources
• Names of reputable adoption agencies and professionals
• Home study services that help participants decide whether to pursue adoption, when, and which type feels right for their family
• Pre- and post-adoption support and counseling for all participants, helping them develop cooperative relationships focusing on shared goals
• Services for families who have children with special emotional, behavioral, medical, and educational needs
• Search and reunion counseling, support, and technical assistance
• Guidance in forming and living with open adoption in a way that honors and respects all participants’ needs

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Frederic G. Reamer, PhD, is the author of The Pocket Guide to Essential Human Services which contains diverse resources compiled into a user-friendly guidebook appropriate for use by professionals, volunteers, and consumers.

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The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writers, and do not necessarily reflect those of the National Association of Social Workers or its members.

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