No matter how positive the intent of prospective parents, international adoption is fraught with emotional, medical, administrative, linguistic, and geopolitical issues. And while a wide range of professionals supports adopted children and their families in adjusting to the inherent changes and disruptions, the pediatrician's tasks--identifying and treating existing health problems and preventing numerous others--are particularly complex. International Adoption and Clinical Practice equips pediatricians with a comprehensive set of tools for establishing a long-term care plan and creating interventions to promote healthy development. This concise guide overviews the intricacies of the international adoption process and how they can affect the pediatrician's job, from potential pitfalls in collecting medical data from a child's birth country to tracking health concerns into adolescence and young adulthood. Developmental and behavioral issues including attachment, language acquisition, identity development, and consequences of abuse and neglect are also examined in this context. Figures, tables, and reference lists complement current information on topics such as: Epidemiology and demographics of international adoption. Pre-adoption evaluation of medical records. Guidelines for diagnostic testing, screening, laboratory evaluations, and immunizations. Common mental health issues faced by adopted children and their families. Long-term and adult outcomes of international adoption. Relevant policy issues and areas for future study. Every child deserves a safe and healthy home, and International Adoption and Clinical Practice gives pediatricians an in-depth framework for helping to make this possible as children make the transition to a new country and the next stage of their lives.

Advances in medical, biomedical and health services research have reduced the level of uncertainty in clinical practice. Clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) complement this progress by establishing standards of care backed by strong scientific evidence. CPGs are statements that include recommendations intended to optimize patient care. These statements are informed by a systematic review of evidence and an assessment of the benefits and costs of alternative care options. Clinical Practice Guidelines We Can Trust examines the current state of clinical practice guidelines and how they can be improved to enhance healthcare quality and patient outcomes. Clinical practice guidelines now are ubiquitous in our healthcare system. The Guidelines International Network (GIN) database currently lists more than 3,700 guidelines from 39 countries. Developing guidelines presents a number of challenges including lack of transparent methodological practices, difficulty reconciling conflicting guidelines, and conflicts of interest. Clinical Practice Guidelines We Can Trust explores questions surrounding the quality of CPG development processes and the establishment of standards. It proposes eight standards for developing trustworthy clinical practice guidelines emphasizing transparency; management of conflict of interest ; systematic review-guideline development intersection; establishing evidence foundations for and rating strength of guideline recommendations; articulation of recommendations; external review; and updating. Clinical Practice Guidelines We Can Trust shows how clinical practice guidelines can enhance clinician and patient decision-making by translating complex scientific research findings into recommendations for clinical practice that are relevant to the individual patient encounter, instead of implementing a one size fits all approach to patient care. This book contains information directly related to the work of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), as well as various Congressional staff and policymakers. It is a vital resource for medical specialty societies, disease advocacy groups, health professionals, private and international organizations that develop or use clinical practice guidelines, consumers, clinicians, and payers.

Adoption is a transformational process bringing parenthood to those who long for but cannot bear children and giving stranded children home, family, and their place in the world. But every adoption is preceded and followed by its story and when these stories are told in the offices of psychotherapists we begin to understand the impact of adoption in all its complexity. We learn from parents how their quest to have and raise a child has played out in real life, and what shadows might have fallen between the dream and the reality. And we learn from the children the many ways that being adopted shaped their development, their sense of identity; what went wrong along the way and how we may help. Clinical work with parents and children as well as with adults who were adopted is the focus of Understanding Adoption. Because adoption has become widely practiced, accepted, and accessible, and because it has greatly changed the composition of families, it is a timely subject for study. The authors of this book undertake exploration of this important terrain of loss and connection, and of the fragility and resilience of human bonds.

This book presents specific methods for the physical rehabilitation, mental health restoration, and academic remediation of post-institutionalized international adoptees. The focus of the book is on the neurological, psychological, and educational consequences of complex childhood trauma in the context of a fundamental change in the social situation of development of former orphanage residents. A discussion of after-adoption traumatic experiences includes a critique of certain “conventional” approaches to the treatment of mental health issues and different disabilities in international adoptees. Using his 30-year background in research and clinical practice, the author expertly describes and analyses a range of methodologies in order to provide an integrated and practical system of “scaffolding” and “compensation” for the successful rehabilitation and remediation of children with ongoing traumatic experiences. This is essential reading for researchers and practicing clinicians concerned with childhood trauma, remedial education, and issues of international adoption.

The 'Handbook of International Adoption Medicine' presents an overview of the specialized medical & developmental issues that affect internationally adopted children, offering guidelines to physicians caring for these children before, during & after adoption.

This is a unique compilation of cross-cultural and international attitudes towards adoption research and outcomes. Whilst informal adoption of children has probably always existed across all human societies, this work is timely in that interest in the role of legal adoption as both a child welfare solution and as a means of alternative family formation for adults wanting to become parents has never been higher. This book is an edited collection of 13 papers based on invited keynote presentations or paper symposia presentations given at the Second International Conference on Adoption Research (ICAR2) 2006. It gives a unique Cross-cultural look at adoption from worldwide, multidisciplinary community of distinguished and emerging adoption researchers. International appeal, with different countries laws, attitudes and outcomes fully explored

Adoption is practiced globally yielding a multidimensional area of study that cannot be characterized by a single movement or discipline. This handbook provides a central source of contemporary scholarship from a variety of disciplines with an international perspective and uses a multifaceted and interdisciplinary approach to ground adoption practices and activities in scientific research. Perspectives of birth/first parents, adoptive parents, and adopted persons are brought forth through a range of disciplinary and theoretical lenses. Beginning with background and context of adoption, including sociocultural and political contexts, the handbook then addresses the diversity of adoptive families in terms of family forms, attitudes about adoption, and characteristics of adopted children. Next, research examining the lived experience of adoption for birth parents, adoptive parents, and adopted individuals is presented. A variety of outcomes for internationally and domestically adopted children and adoptive families is then discussed and the handbook concludes by addressing the development, training, and implementation of adoption competent clinical practice. With cutting-edge research from top international scholars in a diversity of fields, The Routledge Handbook of Adoption should be considered essential reading for students, researchers, and practitioners across the fields of social work, sociology, psychology, medicine, family science, education, and demography. Interviews with chapter authors can be accessed as podcasts (https://anchor.fm/emily-helder) or as videos (https://bit.ly/2FIoi0a).