Acknowledging the challenges faced by many adoptive families, a coalition of child-welfare and adoption groups is appealing for a national reappraisal of how best to provide effective support to keep grim outcomes to a minimum.
A majority of adoptions go well, but a few end disastrously, and others entail wrenching emotional and financial struggles for adoptive families as they take in children from U.S. foster homes and overseas orphanages.
In a report being released today, endorsed by many leading players in the adoption community, the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute said too many families are not receiving essential services while raising children who had been abused, neglected or institutionalized.
The report, “Keeping the Promise,” links the current challenges to the changing face of adoption over the past two decades. Adoption of relinquished infants has become far rarer, now numbering about 14,000 a year, while adoptions out of foster care — involving many kids who suffered abuse or neglect — have soared from about 31,000 in 1997 to more than 57,000 last year. There also were 12,753 adoptions of foreign children last year, many of them with special medical or psychological needs. The Associated Press
