Facilitating Adoptions From Care: A compendium of effective and promising practices

Adoption provides a lifetime of benefits for children who cannot return to their families of origin, including the emotional security of caring adults, and a committed family to ensure that their needs are met. Gaining a family for life not only transforms the futures of children in care, but also brings benefits to childcare systems, communities and governments. In recent decades, some developed countries have established permanency as a priority for children in care who are not able to return home. This is particularly the case in the United States, England and Canada.However, thousands of children and young people who have been in care go out on their own without a permanent family. Would these young people be better off if permanent adoptive or guardian families could have been found for them? What can governments and professionals do to offer the best prospects for finding a permanent family for young people who cannot return home?This volume seeks to answer these questions by examining child welfare research, permanency and practice across England, the US and Canada. Some specific practices are particularly important for providing children with the greatest likelihood of achieving permanence. This compendium identifies 22 innovative practices that have shown promise as a means to that end, primarily through adoption or guardianship, including organizational practices, court practices, recruitment and retention of families, pre-adoptive casework processes, and supporting and preserving adoptive families. This review will expand the knowledge and perspectives of adoption professional, and introduce them to effective, tried and tested practices that will help achieve permanency for more waiting children.