child welfare 2 (part one)

• If a man adopts a child and names him and raises him as his own they can not be demanded back
• However, if a family adopts a child and then the child harms the new mother or father they shall return to their original home

• Provide a male heir
• Emphasis on the interest of the adopter; providing a legal tool that strengthened political ties between wealthy families and creating male heirs to manage estates
• The use of adoption by the aristocracy is well documented; many of Romes emperors were adopted sons

infant

often placed in slavery

perform the duties of ancestor worship

limited and ritualistic so a son could perform funeral duties

First state to enact an adoptive statute

Legal requirement to investigate possible adoptive homes

Statutes passed to deny access to adoption records except on a judical finding of "good cause"

• Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act, 1980
• Adoptionand Safe Families Act, 1997

• Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008    
•       -IV-E funding for subsidized guardianship    
•       -De-links adoption assistance from AFDC/TANF and SSI income requirements
• Creates Family Connection grants
•      -Create or implement kinship programs, intensive family finding efforts, group decision making meetings and residential family treatment programs.

The act of lawfully assuming the parental rights and responsibilities of another person, usually a child under the age of eighteen.  Adoption grants social, emotional, and legal family membership to the person who is adopted.

• not possible without loss
• a triadic relationship
• made possible by commitment
• a service for children
• a life long process

• grow up in a safe nurturing environment with a family
• can't provide him/her with what he/she needs the child has a right to a subsitute family

• it provides legal sanction and permancy of the relationship
• placed for adoption as early as possible in order to provide as much consistency as possible

• life long for all participants
• entitled to information on their birth, their biological family, genetic information, placements, and detials of their adoption

• Related
• Unrelated
• Special Needs Adoptions
• Single Parent Adoptions
• Transracial or Innerracial Adoptions
• International Adoptions
• Independent Adoptions

• Pre-existing tie to a member of the adoptive family
•      •E.g. a stepfather adopts his wife’s child or a couple adopts the child of their unmarried son/daughter
• Surrogate mothering
•      •Mother agrees to be impregnated by the adoptive father’s sperm and then relinquish the child to the sperm donor and his wife

• Parent identified adoptions
•      •Parent gives child to someone known to them
• Gray market:  money is exchanged for legal services, medical bills through an intermediary
• Black market:  Selling children for profit

• protect the child’s right to the best home possible
• ability to pay the fee
• follow up services, counseling, assurance of confidentiality, protection in adoption disrution
• insufficient information about the child
• legal