Best Practices for Implementing Post-Adoption and Wrap Services for International Adoptive Families

The adoption process strives to serve the best interests of children should be the main focus in deciding all issues of adoption policies and practices. The adoption policy should always focus on finding the best parents for children who are in need of homes. This process helps someone join another’s family and should not be a defining characteristic or lifelong process. People who are adopted as infants grow up as healthy and productive as people who are raised in their own biological families. In November of each year, the President of the United States issues a proclamation to announce National Adoption Month. This is a time that is dedicated to raising awareness for the need of adoptive families and to encourage citizens to become involved in the lives of children and youth that are in the foster care system.

Foster Care and Adoption are the most multi-faceted areas of child welfare. Foster care consists of placing children outside of the custody of their parents or legal guardians. This out-of-home placement can be temporary or long-term. Adoption on the other hand, consists of the legal and permanent process that establishes a parent/child relationship between individuals not related biologically (Downs, Moore, & McFadden, 2009). These two areas of child welfare are constantly evolving and the decisions made on a child’s behalf can affect many areas of their biological, spiritual, social, and emotional wellbeing.

In this research they took out a longitudinal study. They studied 65 children which were placed in an institution when less than four months, which had all experienced early privation. By 4 years old, 24 children had been adopted, 15 returned to their natural homes and the rest remained in the institution. It was found that the adopted children had closer attachments to their parents and had good family relationships and this was not the case for the ‘restored’ children.

Over 600,000 children in the United States are in the foster care system. Reasons include, abuse, neglect and abandonment. These children lack nurturing environments and stable homes. Children within the foster care system have more mental, physical and developmental problems. It is imperative to understand the challenges children entering the foster care system are exposed to. The system works best when children are provided nurturing, and short-term care until they can be placed back home safely or a permanent adoptive family. For many children, however, the stay is longer, with 30% remaining in temporary care for over two years. Staying in the system is detrimental to the child’s well-being. The foster care system is an unsuccessful intervention for children that cultivates development, health and mental issues.

According to the Children’s Bureau, there were 427,910 children in the foster care system in 2016. Placements in a foster family have dramatically increased over the last ten years. For some young children and young adults in the foster care system, they have experienced abuse and neglect and have been removed from their parents. Other children have suffered a variety of parental problems such as drug addiction, abandonment, incarceration, mental and physical impairments and death. These painful experiences associated with maltreatment and the trauma of being removed from parents or caregivers can affect the mental health and development of these young people. “ Most children in foster care, if not all experience feelings of confusion,

According to the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting system, in 2011 there were 104, 236 children waiting to be adopted in the United States (p. 4). Adoption is the legal process an individual or family goes through to gain legal custody of a child in foster care. This child’s parents have lost custody of their child because they have been deemed unfit to raise the child, either because of neglect or abuse. After the child is removed from the horrible situation, he or she is taken by child services and placed in a foster home or with a family member. This system is in place to protect children from further abuse, neglect and trauma. Today, children in foster care are in the system for a very short period of time; there is a

Millions of children are living without parents around the world and they need help. Over 153 million youths around the world are without one or both parents, and 7 million of them are in institutional care (qtd. in “Children’s Statistics”). Worldwide, minors are suffering from living without a family and a stable relief system. International adoption, although often in the limelight, is on a slight decline and domestic adoption is increasing. Despite the fact that the percentage of people considering any form of adoption has decreased from 2007 to 2013, the percentage of foster care adoptions has experienced more growth than international and private adoptions (“BAAF Adoption

Many potential adopted parents have experienced heartbreak, anguish and other problems that can be associated with adoption. There is an imbalance in the Nations foster care system and the system needs to be strengthening and the quality of services improved.

The study of the developmental implications of early trauma for children is essential for understanding appropriate expectations and interventions for children to help foster and adoptive families and child welfare workers maintain appropriate expectations for children who have been adopted and better equip them to meet their children’s unique needs. Considering that children who have experienced traumatic removal from a primary caregiver are likely to exhibit behaviors that lead to placement breakdowns and therefore more traumatic removals from caregivers, it is essential for positive long term outcomes that the initial placement and child’s existing connections be preserved (Newton, R. R., Litrownik, A. J., & Landsverk, J. A., 2000). Additionally, foster parents who hold appropriate expectations and understand causes and reasons for a child’s behavior is predictive of placement stability (Butler & Charles, 1999).

To the thousands of children in foster care, adoption means being part of a family. Adoption signifies a chance to be loved, wanted, and cared for properly. Every year thousands of children enter the foster care system. In the year 2010 alone, 245,375 children entered foster care, of that number over 61,000 were black. An astounding 30,812 black children were waiting for adoption in 2010 (AFCARS). With so many children needing homes, it would seem their adoption would be open to any and all loving families, yet this is not the necessarily the case. Transracial adoption, which traditionally alludes to black children placed with white families, is riddled with difficulties. While transracial adoption can be a successful solution, many

This has caused me to want to further research the issue. What are the social and emotional effects that adoption has on children?

The necessity of adoption in the world is astounding. Currently, there is an estimated 143 million orphans worldwide (Wingert, vol.151). As of 2007, there were 513,000 children living in foster care within the United States alone (Rousseau 21:14). International adoption in the United States was jumpstarted post World War II as a way of helping those children who were left homeless, after war had taken their parents. Although there are thousands of healthy children awaiting adoption in the United States, several American couples still turn to foreign adoption when seeking potential children. Americans often fail to realize the need for intervention within their own country and their duty to take care of domestic affairs before venturing to

In the last four decades, the concept of the American family has undergone a radical transformation, reflecting society¡¯s growing openness. Among all segments of society, there is a greater acceptance of a variety of family structures ¨C from single parenting to blended families to same sex parenting of children. The introduction of openness into the process of adoption offers new opportunities for children in need of a parent or parents and prospective parents wishing to create or expand their families. Meeting the requirements to become eligible to adopt no longer means being constrained by the conventions of an earlier generation.

Further, applicants for adoption should be accepted on the basis of an individual assessment of their capacity to understand and meet the needs of a particular available child at the point of adoption and in the future (Rosario, 2006, p.8). The United States is facing a critical shortage of adoptive and foster parents. As a result, hundreds of thousands of children in this country are without permanent homes. These children deteriorate for months, even years, within state foster care systems that lack qualified foster parents and are frequently faced with other problems.

There are common ordeals and situations that can trouble a family emotionally, physically, and psychologically. Adoption is one situation a family must encounter when a child is born without a proper system of support to sustain life after birth. The causes for a family to make a heartfelt decision to place a child for adoption can have dramatic effects on the birth parents, adoptive parents, and child (Adoptee), even if the decision is meant for the best.