What is it about?
This article outlines the place of adoption in the child protection system, as well as its core elements of permanence and stability. Adoption provides a legitimate model for the alternative care of children if undertaken within a rights and ethics framework that emphasizes children’s best interests.
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Why is it important?
Adoption has been challenged in recent years by evidence about practices that do not respond to the principles, ethics and laws under which it should be enacted. For children who cannot remain or be reunified in their birth or extended family early placement, stability and legal and relational permanence in a new family must always be prioritized. The child’s well-being and lifelong safety, needs and welfare must be the primary focus, including their long-term recovery from maltreatment and relational uncertainty. Exposing the child to high-risk and unstable circumstances while waiting to see if something else would work is not a desirable alternative.
Perspectives
This article reflects the consensus among a group of academics and practitioners working on adoption from the perspectives of law and policy, medicine, psychology and social work. Located in different parts of the world, the authors are unified by their joint concern to establish a robust, ethical and evidence informed policy and practice framework.
Jesús Palacios
University of Seville, Spain
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Adoption in the service of child protection: An international interdisciplinary perspective., Psychology Public Policy and Law, May 2019, American Psychological Association (APA),
DOI: 10.1037/law0000192.
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