Adoption is a way for children to be placed with new families when their birth family is unable to care for them appropriately, has abused or neglected them or has died. The Child Welfare Information Gateway, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, states, "Adoption, the legal transfer of parental rights from one parent to another, provides children with love, nurturance and stability and promotes their well-being and their opportunity to become healthy, productive adults." Adoptions generally fall into two broad categories: international and domestic. Domestic adoption covers several types of occurring when the child and the parents are citizens of the same country.
Stepparent Adoption
When a parent remarries, his or her spouse often adopts the other parent's children. With this stepparent adoption, the non-custodial parent is released from all financial, legal and parenting responsibilities. The stepparent becomes a legal parent.
Relative Adoption
When a child's parents die, or they are suffering from abuse or neglect, the court may remove the child from his birth family and place him in a relative adoption or kinship care. While it varies from state to state, relative generally refers to an aunt, uncle, grandparent, great-grandparent or adult sibling. According to the Child Welfare Information Gateway, approximately one-fourth of children in out-of-home placements are living with relatives.
Foster Care Adoption
When children are removed from their birth families by social service agencies due to abuse or neglect, they are often placed with foster families. These families are often considered a temporary family before an adoptive family is found. Sometimes, however, the foster family becomes the adoptive family.
Infant Adoption
When a birth mother decides to place her child with an adoptive family at birth using an adoption agency, it's called a infant agency adoption. The birth mother uses an adoption agency to assist with finding a family and completing the legal aspects of the process. Depending on the degree of openness (communication and visitation) between the birth mother and the adoptive family after the adoption, these adoptions are referred to as open adoptions, semi-open adoptions or closed adoptions.
Independent Adoption
Adoptions arranged by a lawyer, doctor or facilitator are called independent adoptions. This intermediary assists a birth mother to find adoptive parents, or helps adoptive parents to locate a birth mother. Not all states permit independent adoptions.
References
- Adoption Home Study Service: Domestic Adoptions
- Child Welfare Information Gateway: Domestic Adoption
- "Adoption: The Essential Guide to Adopting Quickly and Safely;" Randall Hicks; 2007
