Putting children first? A comparison of child adoption policy and practice in Britain and Finland.

This article compares child adoption policies and practice in Great Britain and Finland. Both countries are states located in the European Union, yet both appear to have very distinct and divergent approaches to child adoption. Currently, in Britain, for example, child adoption is featured prominently across a range of professional, political and popular discourses. In Finland, however, in common with other countries in Scandinavia, child adoption and the permanent transfer of parental rights is not so focal a concern, or preoccupation. In Britain, despite a willingness to embrace the key European theme of "social exclusion," there is now a more dominant tendency to look westward when formulating social and welfare policy, instead of looking elsewhere in Europe. In Finland, as in Britain, there are very few "healthy" babies "available" for adoption. However, in some instances, the foster parents adopt a child or an adolescent who has been in long-term foster care. Approximately 1% of children and adolescents under 18 years live in foster care. Of these, approximately 48% are in family foster care, 40% are in institutional care, and 12% are in new types of family-like professional care.