I'm confused

blanche's picture

what's the difference between adoption and family preservation?

Comments

Who defines your family?

According to the National Family Preservation Network, "children deserve to remain safely with their families when possible, and that all efforts must be made to reunite children with their families, when it is safe to do so".
 
A great introduction to international familiy preservation efforts can be found at: Parents and Professionals for Family Preservation and Protection
 
Adoption, on the otherhand, is the legal act of permanently placing a child with  a parent or parents other than the birth mother or father.

The Adoption Institute

I noticed in the Parents and Professionals for Family Preservation & Protection site, the Adoption Institute was mentioned as an organization that supports family preservation.  How can it?  Isn't it a huge supporter of Adoption.Con, or am I wrong?  I know a lot of those networking advocates work together in really weird ways, feeding off of one another, actually advocating adoption, not family preservation, so isn't that a natural conflict in interest?

Does money come before mommy in their books?

The power of money

Consider the wage difference paid to social workers in an adoption agency versus an registered nurse in a hospital in the UK as shown in  Incentives.

Do you think the same exists in the USA and anywhere else in the world where adoption can generate a revenue for people?

 

Impartial?

I checked your question pertaining the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute. Adoption con as far as I can tell runs on advertisements, which they have plenty, most of them by adoption agencies and adoption lawyers. The adoption institute is not one of the advertizers.

The adoption institute does undertake research in conjunction with one of America's biggest international adoption agencies, Holt international. (See this).

The executive director Adam Pertman is honoured with awards from several pro-adoption among which the Congressional Adoption Coalition on Adoption Institute, a bipartisn group of 55 senators (of 100 total) and 125 representatives (of 435 total), that openly seeks to promote adoption.

Besides that the adoption institute is a member of the Joint Council on International Children's Services, who's memberships list contains a immense number of adopton agencies. This Joint Council has in its mission statement:

While striving to create a safe, permanent and loving family through birth, domestic adoption or international adoption, our response must support and include Kinship Care, Foster Care, Group Homes, Institutions and other secondary options for those children for whom a permanent family is not a viable option.

That way they subscribe to the notion of foster care as being second rate, while foster care can be used as an important instruments in family preservation.

Since money for private adoption research is mainly paid for by parties that are in favour of adoption, the impartiality of that research can be questioned. 

Even though the adoption institute is sometimes the most critical voice within the adoption industry, they are still part of it.