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Intercountry adoption requires adoptive parents to assume their parenthood as well as to acknowledge the cultural and ethnic origins of their child. Narratives are effective means to help individuals cope with non-normative transitions, including adoption, as they allow them to make sense of and legitimise their experiences. This qualitative study sought to extend knowledge about the value of using narrative methods with adoptive families to explore how the language they employ determines the ways in which they perceive situations and vice versa. It uses the word-driven textual analysis software T-LAB to identify key topics highlighted by parents and analyse them in relation to specific variables. Child characteristics, such as gender, age at adoption and birth country, and family variables, such as mother's and father's narratives and first or not-first parenting experience, were considered. From the 37 narratives sampled, those parents adopting from Asia and Eastern Europe, mothers and first-time parents faced the most challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children from some black and minority ethnic (BME) backgrounds are routinely placed with substitute carers who do not match their cultural, linguistic, religious and ethnic backgrounds. The shortage of foster carers and adopters of specific backgrounds means that the demand in the care population often outweighs the availability of matched placement options. While the shortages of BME foster carers and adopters are widely recognised, there is virtually no research into the barriers faced by specific BME groups, so there are no informed recruitment strategies to increase the pool of potential matches. This research focuses on Somalis living in a large English city where there is a significant shortage of Somali foster carers and adopters despite people of Somali heritage comprising a sizeable proportion of the care and city population. Findings from the study suggest that there is no lack of motivation among the Somali population to foster or adopt, but participants felt that potential applicants are either rejected or deterred by institutional barriers, social exclusion and negative perceptions of social care, and that these factors are closely interlinked. The study makes practical suggestions for recruitment and assessment practice, but also stresses the importance of cultural competence and community engagement in a wider context of social care if welfare agencies wish to see more disenfranchised communities volunteering to work with them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Significant concerns remain in many countries about the high numbers of children needing an adoptive placement relative to the low numbers of prospective adopters, the high level of long-term therapeutic support needs for many adopted children and their families, and whether there are appropriate services to meet them. There has been an increase in 'priority' children waiting over 12 months to find a family. These are often children aged four years and over, in care with siblings, with additional needs or developmental uncertainties and from minority ethnic backgrounds. The financial and emotional costs of long-term fostering when plans are changed are huge. This article describes a major development in child care practice in Wales that has occurred over the past two years. The Adopting Together Service (ATS) involves a unique, innovative and multi-layered collaboration between the voluntary adoption agencies (VAAs – non-governmental charities) and regional adoption teams (statutory agencies) to secure permanence for children who wait the longest to find families. It explains how the ATS has been developed and embedded, including an account of the referral process, the approach to recruitment, linking and matching, and therapeutic activity before, during and after placement. It also describes the process of securing sustainable social procurement under the guidance of the British Standard for Collaborative Working (ISO 44001; British Standard Institute, 2017), the creation of a Joint Relationship Management Plan between VAAs, and the implementation of service level agreements between the voluntary and statutory sectors. These developments are considered in the context of the Welsh Government's implementation of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, which lays out collaborative expectations to the statutory sector as one of its sustainable development principles. The article concludes with an initial evaluation of progress, noting challenges to the service and the views of the social workers, foster carers and adoptive parents involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a court case wherein a woman requested for access to court adoption file under Rule 53(4) of the Adoption Rules 1984. The woman has failed to meet the criteria of 'exceptional circumstances' required by section 79. The article discusses the need to have an authority on how courts should deal with an application for access to the court adoption file.

Transracially adopted adults are largely invisible as users of adoption support services in England and their voices are rarely heard in discussions about appropriate provision. This article reports findings from interviews with transracially adopted adults and transracially adopted adult participants at a lesbian, gay and bisexual focus group, carried out as part of a mixed-method study of service users’ views and experiences of post-adoption services delivered by an independent agency. The article opens by outlining the policy context and what is known from existing research about the experiences of domestic transracially adopted adults. It then considers the experiences of 12 adults receiving support services. Drawing on their own words, it describes the difference that adoption support services can make, before highlighting gaps in existing provision and identifying the support needs specific to this group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the methodological and conceptual issues surrounding a long-term follow-up study of girls adopted from orphanages in China around the age of two years. The aim of the study was to see if any effects of early negative experiences affected the women some 45 years later. Seventy-two out of the original 100 women were assessed by means of interviews and questionnaires that explored their health, behaviour, achievements, life satisfaction, self-esteem, relationships, ethnic identification, community connectedness and personality profiles. The results were compared with data from the UK National Child Development Study of children born in 1958. It was found that on the measures used, the adopted women were little different from the national population, suggesting that early disadvantage can be reversed and positive developmental pathways re-established. The article then reviews the methods and instruments used to assess adults in mid-life, especially those sensitive to identifying adversities resulting from early neglect. It is suggested that checklists of psychological problems may be insufficient to produce a complete picture and that a wider range of measures is needed to capture important features of interpersonal relationships and parenting histories, with an additional requirement to incorporate the experiences and variables introduced by adoption. Two concepts – ‘life-long preoccupations’ and ‘a carapace’ – are suggested as especially useful in this respect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jasper is now 12 years old. When he was seven he started primary school in England after moving to the UK with his family. He had been adopted from Eastern Europe when he was two years old. From the beginning of his schooling in England he struggled and others struggled with him. At one school he was faced with exclusion but before this could happen his parents moved him to another school where, immediately, his ‘special’ needs were considered. This article is the educational story of Jasper, how his needs were ignored and misunderstood at one school, yet fully taken into account by another. Told from a service-user perspective, it explores Jasper’s experiences of despair and hope, and how his adoptive parents worked strategically with a range of services to ensure that his educational needs were met in the context of understanding his emotional needs. It provides suggestions for improved educational practice with adopted children like Jasper. The story is based on real events but names, locations and other identifiers have been changed to ensure anonymity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Several abstracts on adoption and fostering are presented which includes "Making Sense of Siblings: Connections and Severances in Post-Adoption Contact," by Cossar Jeanette and Neil Elsbeth; "Hosting Strangers: Hospitality and Family Practices in Fostering Unaccompanied Refugee Young People," and "Narrative and Structure in Consultation."

Intercountry adoption (ICA) in the UK has historically been a small-scale practice, ‘tolerated’ at best, virtually unregulated and arguably privatised in nature. With the primary purpose of enabling the ratification of the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption, the Adoption (Intercountry Aspects) Act 1999 also aimed to place ICA on equal footing with domestic adoption by applying to it the adoption procedures and services prescribed by the Adoption and Children Act 2002 and its subsequent regulations. Taking into consideration factors such as the over-burdened national care system, inadequate policy provisions, tensions between ideological support for and opposition to intercountry adoption, and the well-established national ICA support community, this article addresses the extent to which this objective has been achieved through an examination of agency practices and intercountry adoptive parents’ experiences of preparation and assessment. The findings of this study indicate that a ‘two-tier service’ persists and ICA has been preserved as a small-scale, semi-private practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Intercountry adoption (ICA) in the UK has historically been a small-scale practice, 'tolerated' at best, virtually unregulated and arguably privatised in nature. With the primary purpose of enabling the ratification of the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption, the Adoption (Intercountry Aspects) Act 1999 also aimed to place ICA on equal footing with domestic adoption by applying to it the adoption procedures and services prescribed by the Adoption and Children Act 2002 and its subsequent regulations. Taking into consideration factors such as the over-burdened national care system, inadequate policy provisions, tensions between ideological support for and opposition to intercountry adoption, and the well-established national ICA support community, this article addresses the extent to which this objective has been achieved through an examination of agency practices and intercountry adoptive parents' experiences of preparation and assessment. The findings of this study indicate that a 'two-tier service' persists and ICA has been preserved as a smallscale, semi-private practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents several abstracts on adoption and fostering topics, including connections and severances among siblings in post-adoption contact, reconfiguring adoption design in Emgland, and professional foster carer and committed parent.

During the last century, mass media joined the institutions which had traditionally provided the elements for shaping perceptions of reality. As a result, they became central to the process of constructing social reality and to the functioning of modern societies. Among these media, the press is especially significant in delineating dominant cultural patterns and social values and through its use of language, building collective 'imaginaries' that influence public opinion. Between 1997 and 2010, 46,638 children adopted from abroad came to live in Spain1 and of those, 11,459 (24.5%) went to families in Catalonia. They came from 36 different countries, mostly included in the category of 'Global South'. Thus, they carry phenotypes that are different from those prevailing in Catalonia but are similar to those of many immigrants living in the region. As media portrayals will affect the (re)construction and transmission of collective 'imaginaries' on adoption, adopters, adoptees and the originating and receiving countries, an analysis of the language used in 796 articles referring to intercountry adoption, published between 1997 and 2011 in two of the major newspapers in Catalonia, was undertaken. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts on adoption and fostering including "Adoption in South Africa: Trends and Patterns in Social Work Practice," "The Global Decline of Intercountry Adoption: What Lies Ahead?," and "Social Skills of Adopted Chinese Girls at Home and in School: Parent and Teacher Ratings."

The article discusses various reports published within the issue including dynamic patterns in the construction of identities in family placement and multicultures, the contemporary British legislative context on matching minority ethnic children to adopters, and the interplay of policy, history, experience and identities in transnational adoption.

The over-representation of African American children placed in out-of-home care and in need of adoption continues to be a major problem in the United States. Many believed that the passage of the controversial Multiethnic Placement Act and subsequent Interethnic Provisions would address the problem by increasing the number of African American children adopted. However, the problem still remains years later . Ruth McRoy and Amy Griffin examine the factors associated with US practice and policy initiatives, which aimed to increase the number of adoptions of minority ethnic (especially African American) children in care. The lessons from these experiences may be particularly relevant as the UK develops a new legal, policy and practice framework for transracial adoption to increase permanency for minority ethnic children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The consequences of looking visibly 'non-white' are a recurrent theme in the accounts of many transnational adoptees in Sweden, who frequently find their Swedishness challenged in everyday life. The guidance and education material published by the Swedish Intercountry Adoption Authority (MIA) suggests a strategy of dealing with this by developing pride in the adoptees' non-Swedish origin. The implicit message is that the Swedishness they are excluded from is not worth aspiring to and having additional national origins is more desirable. While this might seem to be a plausible strategy, it raises various problems. For example, despite official discourse on the value of multiculturalism, non-Swedishness in Sweden continues to have predomi nantly negative connotations. Further, it is a strategy that requires certain cultural and language competencies that are difficult to acquire. Judith Lind analyses the accounts of 22 young adult transnational adoptees in nine focus group discussions in relation to the recommendations made by the MIA. In so doing, she contextualises the Swedish recommendations by considering the background in which they were produced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transracial adoptions by white parents are situated at the intersections of family and public policy. Debates on racial integration are juxtaposed with child rights and the private sphere of the family. In Britain, the practices of transracial adoption and 'racial matching' continue to invite fierce debate and discussion. Several factors, including the ongoing disproportionate representation of minority ethnic children in the public care system, the 'unavailability' of suitable minority ethnic adoptive parents, concerns about adoptees' racial/cultural identity and the 'suitability' of white parents to raise racially competent children, form the backdrop for such debates. For the last decade or so, political attention has been focused on permanence for children in care and adoption in particular. Within these wider debates, the allegedly low adoption rates of minority ethnic children, the 'delay' in finding suitable adoptive families, the 'rejection' of suitable white adoptive couples, and 'ethnic matching' are presented as some of the key concerns. Ravinder Barn and Derek Kirton seek to unravel the evidence base around transracial adoption and 'racial matching' in the symbolic representational battle being fought in the 'best interests' of minority ethnic children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adoption stories, like other narratives, seek to establish a child's linear life course. As such, they attempt to encapsulate a biological beginning, a birth point. This point allows certain attributes which are assumed to be fixed and static, such as sex and ethnicity, to be ascribed to the child and these are often taken to be fundamental to the unfolding narrative. Using qualitative research with families who live in England and have adopted daughters from China, Sarah Richards explores the narratives of belonging with the girls themselves and their parents. These belonging stories are shaped by reification of biological parentage and of birth heritage that reflects the social and political context in which adoption stories are told. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When and how are issues of race and ethnicity articulated in the everyday lives of transnational adoptees in Sweden? Which discursive and practical ambivalences and conflicts do they provoke? What happens with issues of race in a country where antiracist colourblindness is the norm, and where there has been no debate on whether whites should adopt children of colour? Based on an analysis of interviews with transnational adoptees and adoption-related documents, Tobias Hübinette and Malinda Andersson examine how discursive conditions regarding race and ethnicity are negotiated in their daily lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The policy and practice of family placement within the UK can be understood as the archetypal separation of a person from their physical environment, yet the inter section of 'person with place' -- both past and present -- has been argued to be crucial for identity formation. Indeed, intersectional analysts have called for alternative frameworks which challenge western models centering on the individual person disconnected from his or her community. An emerging body of work has drawn on Maori social work literature to explore the intersection of 'person (identity) with place' through an application to the concept of spirituality within western social work practice models (Zapf, 2005a, b). According to this perspective, people can have deep spiritual connections with the physical environ ment in which they live, creating a sense of belonging and attachment to that place. Victoria Sharley considers this Maori spiritual analysis in the context of family placement practice in the UK. In so doing, she offers a new way of thinking about the inter-relationship of cultural identity, place and spirituality as it affects the development of children separated from their birth families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the field of international adoption there has been a long-standing concern that transracially adopted people experience social dislocation from both their communities of origin and the communities in which they grew up. Alan Rushton, Margaret Grant, John Simmonds and Julia Feast of the British Chinese Adoption Study team explore this notion in relation to a sample of 72 ex-orphanage, Hong Kong-born women adopted into British families in the 1960s. The authors report on how the women choose to identify themselves in mid life. The article describes the development and use of specially devised questionnaires to explore community connectedness and self-regard among this group of women. Further analysis examines the relationship between community connectedness and psychological well-being. The findings are then positioned in the context of the narrative data from face-to-face interviews with the women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tien Ung, Susan Harris O'Connor and Raymond Pillidge introduce a model that aims to explain the development of racial identity in transracially adopted people. The nature and process of racial identity development is examined through a transactional lens, using ecology theory as a conceptual framework. The authors propose that racial identity is a multi-dimensional construct that evolves as a result of an interactive and reciprocal relationship between a person and his or her social, cultural and political environment. In this model, racial identity is comprised of five dimensions: genetic racial identity, imposed racial identity, cognitive racial identity, visual racial identity and feeling racial identity (Harris O'Connor, 1999). The authors draw on selected content from the published personal narratives of adults who were transracially adopted as children to clarify the mean ing of each construct, and to illustrate how the constructs may manifest in the experiences and lives of transracially adopted people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts on adoption and fostering topics which include a paradigm shift in intercountry adoption for the 21st century, predicting factors for foster children adoption and supervisor training for principle-driven practice with youth in foster care.

Intercountry adoption (ICA) began after World War II, but opinions differ regarding how the practice has been Alexandra described and classified in the literature. Young examines how various researchers have interpreted its history and proposes a new analysis of the phases in its development. The beginning of ICA was strongly influenced by humanitarian ideals and a desire to help children dislocated by war and natural disasters. During the next period, the motivation changed and it became a solution that satisfied the needs of both developing and developed countries for finding families for children. As the number of children available in developed countries declined, a market mentality evolved in relation to the availability of children. This was followed by the current phase when sending countries are developing domestic solutions for children needing families, leading to a fall in the number of children available for ICA. This article examines this history and discusses factors that have influenced past and present policy and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the preceding article, Peter Selman explores public and state responses to intercountry adoption in the immediate aftermath of the Haiti earthquake. Miranda Davies expands on this topic with a critique of the concept of the 'best interests of the child' as the legislative cornerstone governing intercountry adoption. Although the principle recognises children as having 'agency', the universality to which it aspires fails to account for the ambiguities involved in its application. This dilemma is exemplified by the politics of rescue, referring to the complex web of interests and relationships that lie behind the perceived altruism of 'rescuing' children from a life of poverty, often exacerbated by humanitarian emergencies, to one of wealth, security and opportunities overseas. Descriptions of the experience of intercountry adoptees broaden the debate by raising questions of racial politics, identity and belonging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the first two months of 2010, the plight of orphaned children in earthquake-hit Haiti led to calls for intercountry adoption processes to be expedited, but it also raised the question of whether taking children away from their homeland, even in extreme or impoverished conditions, is the right solution, especially at times of crisis. Peter Selman examines, in the context of other examples of the use (or non-use) of adoption as a response to natural disaster , the varied responses of countries in Europe and North America in the aftermath of the earthquake and how this affected the number of children adopted from Haiti. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the court case Re P (Foreign adoption: Original documents from country of origin) about an application from the adoptive parents of a child for the return of the child's original passport and birth certificate. It explores the Hague Convention of May 29, 1993 on Protection of Child and Cooperation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption, international considerations on nationality, and the court practice in Northern Ireland on retention of adoption files.

The article presents abstracts on adoption and foster home care which include the transracial adoption implications of the role of race in young biracial adults' identity construction, self-esteem of transracial, international, and domestic adoptees, and fostering children with disabilities.

Tina Patel presents findings from an empirical study carried out in Britain in 2000-2003 into the racial identity development of a small sample of adults who were transracially adopted as children. A symbolic interactionist perspective is applied to the analysis of the ways in which, to varying degrees, the adoptees experienced a number of difficulties tied to racial differences from the adoptive family, the racialised questions and categorisations of others, and inclusion and exclusion issues with birth and adoptive heritages. The study also highlights the way in which adoptees had understood and negotiated these difficulties in order to develop a particular type of ethnic identity that incorporates both parts of their birth and adoptive heritages, best represents how the adoptees see themselves and facilitates the pursuit of a positive sense of self. Using these findings, a number of best practice recommendations are made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article describes the case of Re R (A Child) [2012] High Court Family Division Hedley J which involves a four-year old child named R who was born in India and a married couple living in England who wanted to adopt him. According to the author, the British immigration authorities did not recognise the Indian adoption in order to allow R to be brought to England. The British Court of Appeal ruled that the main question in the case is whether the child is cared for by a local authority.

A letter to the editor is presented in response to the article by Peter Selman and Miranda Davies on international child adoption patterns in the Winter 2011 issue of "Adoption & Fostering."

Presents a legal case on foreign adoption that examined the effect of consent given to adoption not recognized under English law, service of documents on birth mother and adoption in favor of separated couple. Background of the case; Questions that were considered by the court include whether the birth mother's consent to the English adoption was required and whether the application had to be served on the birth mother.

The article deals with a case which questions the legality of the temporary suspension of intercountry adoption from Cambodia imposed by the government of Great Britain on June 22, 2004. The adoptive families affected by the temporary suspension claimed that the Secretary of State has no power to decline to issue a certificate of eligibility if the adoption agency had complied with the proper procedures. But the government claimed that the Secretary of State has such a discretion.