Adoption

Adoption issues and ideas

1. Among Canadians there is a general lack of awareness about adoption, despite the fact that a large percentage of the population is involved in some way.
2. Provincial and federal governments need to take more responsibility for all aspects of domestic and international adoption, and to work together on behalf of children. We need federal legislation, and funding for data collection, think tanks and programs like Canada's Waiting Children.
3. Canada urgently needs more research and publishing on adoption. We lack basic data, especially on: the number of children in care, adoption successes, children's need for a permanent home, and the movement of children from foster care into adoption. We can learn from the examples set by the United States and the United Kingdom, where there are institutes for researching adoption.
4. Children can't wait indefinitely for a nurturing, permanent home. Some children are in foster care far too long while child welfare authorities try to determine if they can be returned to their birth family. In the meantime, they often have to move from one foster family to another. (For example, a child who is a ward of the Crown in Ontario moves every two years, on average.) Besides shortening the time before the child can be adopted, the authorities could, when first placing them with a foster family, try to find a family willing to foster them for as long as necessary, and perhaps adopt them if they can't return to their birth family.
5. We need to speed up the recruitment of families for children waiting in the system. We should also accelerate the adoption process for families willing to adopt special-needs children. In particular, the "home study" (a government-required screening/training process) could be done more quickly.
6. Dialogue is needed with First Nations people over child welfare issues. Some people are against placing First Nations children with white adoptive parents even when no other parents are available. This concern must be weighed against the consequences for the child of being moved from home to home and possibly never having a permanent family.
7. Transracial adoption and parenting require special consideration of the issues around racial and cultural identity.
8. Children adopted internationally have special needs due to institutionalization, abandonment and cultural differences.
9. Adoptive parents, whether they adopt within Canada or internationally, should have access to training in how to meet the special needs of their adopted child.
10. Subsidies must be available to enable qualified, would-beparents—especially foster parents—to adopt.
11. A certain percentage of adoptions "fail." According to American researchers, 11–18% of adoptions break down during the probationary period. This is called adoption disruption. In a small but worrying percentage of cases (perhaps 2%), adoptive families can?t cope after the adoption is finalized. The child returns to child welfare and may be readopted. This is adoption dissolution. Both disruption and dissolution are due to mismatched expectations and the lack of family training, support and services. Some adopted children leave home as teens, but remain connected or eventually reconnect with their adoptive family.
12. Post-adoption support such as referrals and respite services should be available for as long as necessary. Children with disabilities, particularly those with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, require special support and the understanding of parents and professionals.

13. Adoption must be included in the curriculum for educating professionals in social work, mental health, medicine and the law. They also need continuing education to keep up with changing conditions in the adoption field.
14. Openness, as a foundation principle, should be reflected in all adoption practices. Birth parents, adoptees and adoptive parents are all entitled to accurate, complete information.
15. Provincial search and reunion processes should be accelerated. British Columbia, Newfoundland, the North West Territories and Nunavut have opened their records through Adoption Acts that could be models for other provinces.
16. The option of placing their child for adoption should be presented to pregnant women and especially teens. Open adoption should be explained and supported.
17. We need to respect a multiplicity of views on adoption. People working on behalf of children, and families in the adoption and foster care communities, must work together to further the goals of permanency for every child, and knowledge of their origins for children and adults.