Adoption

This text presents an argument for a more complex view of transnational adoption, including stranger adoption, kinship adoption, fostering, and informal circulating children.

International adoptions have decreased dramatically in the last decade, despite robust evidence of the tremendous benefits that early placement in adoptive families can confer upon children who are not able to remain with birth families. Adoption Beyond Borders integrates evidence from a range of disciplines in the social and biological sciences-- including psychology, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, sociology, anthropology, and social work -- to provide a ringing endorsement of international adoption as a viable child welfare option. The author interweaves narrative accounts of her own adoption journey, which involved visiting a Kazakhstani orphanage daily for nearly a year, to illustrate the complexities and implications of the research evidence. Topics include: the effects of institutionalization on children's developing brains, cognitive abilities, and socio-emotional functioning; the challenges of navigating issues of identity when adopting across national, cultural, and racial lines; the strong emotional bonds that form even without genetic relatedness; and the methods in which adoptive families can address the special needs of children who experienced early neglect and deprivation, thereby providing a supportive environment in which those children can flourish. Striving to attain a balanced, evidence-based perspective on controversial issues, Adoption Beyond Borders argues that international adoption must be maintained and supported as a vital means of promoting international child welfare.

"A beacon through the often tangled and varied paths to parenting through adoption" - William Pierce, President, National Council for Adoption Hailed as "an extremely valuable resource" by Jann Heffner, executive director of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, this new edition covers the adoption process, new information on cyber adoption, changes in adoption laws, and the financial considerations of adoption. - Updated appendixes with new listings for adoption agencies, publications, adoptive parents' groups, and adoption attorneys - Comprehensive information on adopting abroad, Internet-assisted adoptions, and the legal aspects of adoption, including pre-birth consent laws

Intercountry adoption has undergone a radical decline since 2004 when it reached a peak of approximately 45,000 children adopted globally. Its practice had been linked to conflict, poverty, gender inequality, and claims of human trafficking, ultimately leading to the establishment of the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption (HCIA). This international private law along with the Convention on the Rights of the Child affirm the best interests of the child as paramount in making decisions on behalf of children and families with obligations specifically oriented to safeguards in adoption practices. In 2004, as intercountry adoption peaked and then began a dramatic decline, commercial global surrogacy contracts began to take off in India. Global surrogacy gained in popularity owing, in part, to improved assisted reproductive technology methods, the ease with which people can make global surrogacy arrangements, and same-sex couples seeking the option to have their own genetically-related children. Yet regulation remains an issue, so much so that the Hague Conference on Private International Law has undertaken research and assessed the many dilemmas as an expert group considers drafting a new law, with some similarities to the HCIA and a strong emphasis on parentage. This ground-breaking book presents a detailed history and applies policy and human rights issues with an emphasis on the best interests of the child within intercountry adoption and the new conceptions of protection necessary in global surrogacy. To meet this end, voices of surrogate mothers in the US and India ground discourse as authors consider the human rights concerns and policy implications. For both intercountry adoption and global surrogacy, the complexity of the social context anchors the discourse inclusive of the intersections of poverty and privilege. This examination of the inevitable problems is presented at a time in which the pathways to global surrogacy appear to be shifting as the Supreme Court of India weighs in on the future of the industry there while Thailand, Cambodia and other countries have banned the practice all together. There is speculation that countries in Africa and possibly Central America appear poised to pick up the multi-million dollar industry as the demand for healthy infants continues on.

EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND. This book explores how children’s rights are weighed against parents’ rights in a range of countries, and examines how governments and legal and welfare professionals balance those rights following the decision that children cannot grow up in their parents’ care.

The book describes the experiences that people have had when tracing their birth parents, as well as offering practical advice on how to go about searching and what to expect emotionally. Each section has an advice box which summarizes key points, notes issues to pay particular attention to, or offers draft letters that readers can adapt for their own needs. The appendix contains useful addresses and weblinks, and includes checklists for searching and for the reunion. Chapters include reunion with birth fathers and birth siblings, as well as with birth mothers, the relationship with the adoptive family and dealing with reunions that break down.

This volume presents perspectives of creative arts therapies approaches in adoption and foster care. Creative arts therapists will find this collection to be of particular relevance, but the intention is to also introduce this subject to a wide range of clinicians, including those in the associated professions of social work, counseling, psychology, psychiatry, nursing, teaching, and related fields. The chapters refer specifically to the development and contemporary application of creative arts therapies approaches in adoption and foster care. The chapters reflect the ways in which creative arts therapies can be applied in different settings, and represent the spectrum of ideas in current practice. The first seven chapters focus on adoption and present theoretical perspectives on adoption adjustment that include psychodynamic, attachment, social role, family systems, stress and coping, object relations, trauma, cognitive-behavioral, and biological perspectives. A variety of psychological constructs are explored, such as trust attachment, abandonment, rejection, self-esteem, identity integration, grief, and loss. These chapters also reflect types of work with specific adoption populations, including international and transracial. Individual, group, and family therapy formats are outlined. Approaches to treatment including art, drama, music, play, and sand tray therapy are presented predominantly in case study format. In some cases, diagnosis and assessment are discussed. In Part Two, the five chapters that focus on foster care explore the creative arts therapist’s role in the social system; attachment and foster care research; issues such as self-esteem, boundaries, guilt, shame, loss, ambivalence, aggression, splitting, rejection, trauma; themes of abuse and neglect, resilience. and behavioral and emotional disturbances. Five chapters exploring transcultural and transracial issues are the focus of Part Three. This book will help meet a demand for ideas and practical information about this topic on the part of an audience reaching beyond the creative arts therapies.

This document is designed to fill major information voids in the field of adoption and to provide prospective adoptive parents with reliable data on which to base decisions. The factbook contains four major types of new information: (1) a frank discussion of the issues concerning adoption -- including costs; tax regulations; transracial adoption; foreign adoption; foster care; pro's and con's of public, private, and individual adoption; characteristics of adoptive children, biological parents, and adoptive parents; and business firms and adoption benefits; (2) adoption regulations -- including state regulations; Immigration and Naturalization Service Regulations for foreign adoptions; regulations on access to state adoption records; legislation on adoption registries; and regulations on surrogate motherhood; (3) adoption statistics -- including previously unpublished data from the National Committee for Adoption's national survey of adoption; previously unpublished Immigration and Naturalization Service data on foreign adoptions; a new synthesis of trend statistics on adoption; and recommendations for a sensible federal/state adoption data collection program; and (4) adoption resources -- including lists of about 600 adoption specialists, support groups, organizations, and programs designed to help lay persons and professionals at the local, state, and national level obtain access to the experts. A short list of publications available from the National Committee for Adoption concludes the document. (RH)

This book discusses the adoption of learning management systems (LMS) in higher education institutions. It presents influential predictors that may impact instructors’ behavioral intention to adopt learning management systems in the context of Arab culture, as well as a unique model of technology acceptance that draws on and combines previous technology adoption models (i.e., a modified unified theory of acceptance and use of technology model – UTAUT2). Moreover, this study extends the UTAUT2 model by including Hofstede’s (1980) cultural dimensions, and technology awareness as the moderators of the model. It also describes the explanatory technique approach used to collect quantitative data from the instructors at higher education institutions in Saudi Arabia and were analyzed with structural equation modeling using SPSS/Amos software. The findings revealed that facilitating conditions were the strongest predictor of behavioral intention to adopt an LMS, followed by performance expectancy and hedonic motivation, technology awareness, and cultural dimensions exerted a moderating influence on instructors’ behavioral intention to use LMS in their teaching. By including new constructs, this becomes the first study of its kind exploring instructors’ use of LMS in Higher Educational Institutions of Saudi Arabia and other countries of the Middle East. It offers practical insights for a broad range of researchers and professionals at higher education institutions and serves as a reference guide for designers of learning management systems (e.g., blackboard systems), policymakers, and the Ministry of Education staff.

A revised edition of the encouraging, sensitive yet realistic guide that answers all the questions anyone who wants to adopt a child might have.