(Posted 2024 November)
The National Council for Adoption has recently completed several research reports about the distinct groups impacted by adoption – adoptees, adoptive parents, and birth parents who placed a child for adoption. Researchers used a variety of tools to gather data for the reports including surveys, focus groups and secondary data in the federal child welfare database. The Profiles in Adoption are available to review and download.
A new 2024 report, Profiles in Adoption: Adult Adoptee Experiences, examines the experiences and perspectives of over 1200 adult adoptees. Most respondents were adopted from foster care, private domestic adoption, or intercountry adoption, and most participants were female. There was a wide variety of races and ethnicities depending on the type of adoption.
According to the researchers, the goal of this report is “to contribute to the growing body of research that seeks to better understand adoptees from their own perspectives and to promote improved practices and policies in the adoption community.” It includes demographic characteristics, experiences with post-adoption services, variation by type of adoption, and advice to future adoptive parents.
NCFA also produced a report in 2022 examining the adoptive parent’s experience. According to the site, it is “the largest study of adoptive families ever conducted, with responses from 4,212 adoptive parents—representing 4,135 households and parents to 6,608 adopted individuals—residing in all 50 states and Washington, D.C.” The report contains statistics about adoptees, adoptive families and their motivations. It provides insight into details such as the cost and duration of the adoption process. It also provides insight into the outcomes for adoptees.
This national survey of adoptive parents was conducted in August 2021. An effort was made to recruit a diverse group of participants using social media, email and listserv invitations via the National Council For Adoption (NCFA), its stakeholders, and adoption community contacts.
These reports offer a lot of good news about adoptees, their overall satisfaction with their adoptions and life in general. There is also a lot of data to support the importance of post-adoption services, open communication, and maintaining birth family connections.
These reports can be useful in providing adoption professionals, adoptive families, and prospective adoptive parents with information to empower their support of adoption, and to adapt their practices to encourage the best outcomes for everyone involved in adoption.
Citations:
Hanlon, R., Davi, N., Quade, M., & Lindner, A. (2024). Profiles in adoption: Adult adoptee experiences. National Council For Adoption.
Hanlon, R., & Quade, M. (2022). Profiles in adoption: A survey of adoptive parents and secondary data analysis of federal adoption files. National Council For Adoption.
This article posting is part of the Foster Family News monthly newsletter designed to keep foster parents informed about all the new and notable happenings in Fairfax County.
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