The controversies in adoption have extended across a spectrum of policy and practice issues, and although the issues have become clear, resolution has not been achieved nor has consensus developed regarding a framework on which to improve the quality of adoption policy and practice. This book is the first in a series to use an ethics-based framework for analyzing and resolving these complex challenges in adoption while avoiding the divisiveness that has heretofore impeded their resolution. This book considers critical questions regarding the role of race, culture, and national origin in adoption from the perspective of individuals served by adoption and from a broad policy perspective. Addressed in the book are unresolved questions related to the role of race, culture, and national origin in an adoptee's personal identity and the extent to which racial and cultural similarities and differences between adoptive parents and children should be taken into account. The book notes that these questions have been placed at the forefront of the policy debate as a result of recent changes in federal law. Also examined is the role of culture in the adoption of American Indian children, focusing on the debates related to the Indian Child Welfare Act. Finally, the book examines the role of race, culture, and national origin related to international adoption, highlighting the mandates of the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption. (Contains 356 references.) (KB)

Conversations about multiculturalism rarely consider the position of children, who are presumptively nested in families and communities. Yet providing care for children who are unanchored from their birth families raises questions central to multicultural concerns, as they frequently find themselves moved from communities of origin through adoption or foster care, which deeply affects marginalized communities. This book explores the debate over communal and cultural belonging in three distinct contexts: domestic transracial adoptions of non-American Indian children, the scope of tribal authority over American Indian children, and cultural and communal belonging for transnationally adopted children. Understanding how children 'belong' to families and communities requires hard thinking about the extent to which cultural or communal belonging matters for children and communities, who should have authority to inculcate racial and cultural awareness and, finally, the degree to which children should be expected to adopt and carry forward racial or cultural identities.

The Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA), which became law in 1997, elicited a major shift in federal policy and thinking toward child welfare, emphasizing children's safety, permanency, and well-being over preserving biological ties at all costs. The first edition of this volume mapped the field of child welfare after ASFA's passage, detailing the practices, policies, programs, and research affected by the legislation's new attitude toward care. This second edition highlights the continuously changing child welfare climate in the U.S., including content on the Fostering Connections Act of 2008. The authors have updated the text throughout, drawing from real-world case examples and data obtained from the national Child and Family Services Reviews and emerging empirically based practices. They have also added chapters addressing child welfare workforce issues, supervision, and research and evaluation. The volume is divided into four sections—child and adolescent well-being, child and adolescent safety, permanency for children and adolescents, and systemic issues within services, policies, and programs. Recognized scholars, practitioners, and policy makers discuss meaningful engagement with families, particularly Latino families; health care for children and youth, including mental health care; effective practices with LGBT youth and their families; placement stability; foster parent recruitment and retention; and the challenges of working with immigrant children, youth, and families.

Intercountry adoption represents a significant component of international migration; in recent years, up to 45,000 children have crossed borders annually as part of the intercountry adoption boom. Proponents have touted intercountry adoption as a natural intervention for promoting child welfare. However, in cases of fraud and economic incentives, intercountry adoption has been denounced as child trafficking. The debate on intercountry adoption has been framed in terms of three perspectives: proponents who advocate intercountry adoption, abolitionists who argue for its elimination, and pragmatists who look for ways to improve both the conditions in sending countries and the procedures for intercountry transfer of children. Social workers play critical roles in intercountry adoption; they are often involved in family support services or child relinquishment in sending countries, and in evaluating potential adoptive homes, processing applications, and providing support for adoptive families in receiving countries; social workers are involved as brokers and policy makers with regard to the processes, procedures, and regulations that govern intercountry adoption. Their voice is essential in shaping practical and ethical policies of the future. Containing 25 chapters covering the following five areas: policy and regulations; sending country perspectives; outcomes for intercountry adoptees; debate between a proponent and an abolitionist; and pragmatists' guides for improving intercountry adoption practices, this book will be essential reading for social work practitioners and academics involved with intercountry adoption.

In this vivid ethnography, Jessaca B. Leinaweaver explores “child circulation,” informal arrangements in which indigenous Andean children are sent by their parents to live in other households. At first glance, child circulation appears tantamount to child abandonment. When seen in that light, the practice is a violation of international norms regarding children’s rights, guidelines that the Peruvian state relies on in regulating legal adoptions. Leinaweaver demonstrates that such an understanding of the practice is simplistic and misleading. Her in-depth ethnographic analysis reveals child circulation to be a meaningful, pragmatic social practice for poor and indigenous Peruvians, a flexible system of kinship that has likely been part of Andean lives for centuries. Child circulation may be initiated because parents cannot care for their children, because a childless elder wants company, or because it gives a young person the opportunity to gain needed skills. Leinaweaver provides insight into the emotional and material factors that bring together and separate indigenous Andean families in the highland city of Ayacucho. She describes how child circulation is intimately linked to survival in the city, which has had to withstand colonialism, economic isolation, and the devastating civil war unleashed by the Shining Path. Leinaweaver examines the practice from the perspective of parents who send their children to live in other households, the adults who receive them, and the children themselves. She relates child circulation to international laws and norms regarding children’s rights, adoptions, and orphans, and to Peru’s history of racial conflict and violence. Given that history, Leinaweaver maintains that it is not surprising that child circulation, a practice associated with Peru’s impoverished indigenous community, is alternately ignored, tolerated, or condemned by the state.

The Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics, Second Edition, Four Volume Set addresses both the physiological and the psychological aspects of human behavior. Carefully crafted, well written, and thoroughly indexed, the encyclopedia helps users - whether they are students just beginning formal study of the broad field or specialists in a branch of psychology - understand the field and how and why humans behave as we do. The work is an all-encompassing reference providing a comprehensive and definitive review of the field. A broad and inclusive table of contents ensures detailed investigation of historical and theoretical material as well as in-depth analysis of current issues. Several disciplines may be involved in applied ethics: one branch of applied ethics, for example, bioethics, is commonly explicated in terms of ethical, legal, social, and philosophical issues. Editor-in-Chief Ruth Chadwick has put together a group of leading contributors ranging from philosophers to practitioners in the particular fields in question, to academics from disciplines such as law and economics. The 376 chapters are divided into 4 volumes, each chapter falling into a subject category including Applied Ethics; Bioethics; Computers and Information Management; Economics/Business; Environmental Ethics; Ethics and Politics; Legal; Medical Ethics; Philosophy/Theories; Social; and Social/Media. Concise entries (ten pages on average) provide foundational knowledge of the field Each article will features suggested readings pointing readers to additional sources for more information, a list of related websites, a 5-10 word glossary and a definition paragraph, and cross-references to related articles in the encyclopedia Newly expanded editorial board and a host of international contributors from the US, Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Sweden, and the United Kingdom The 376 chapters are divided into 4 volumes, each chapter falling into a subject category including Applied Ethics; Bioethics; Computers and Information Management; Economics/Business; Environmental Ethics; Ethics and Politics; Legal; Medical Ethics; Philosophy/Theories; Social; and Social/Media

Discover the roots of international transracial adoption International Korean Adoption: A Fifty-Year History of Policy and Practice explores the long history of international transracial adoption. Scholars present the expert multidisciplinary perspectives and up-to-date research on this most significant and longstanding form of international child welfare practice. Viewpoints and research are discussed from the academic disciplines of psychology, ethnic studies, sociology, social work, and anthropology. The chapters examine sociohistorical background, the forming of new families, reflections on Korean adoption, birth country perspectives, global perspectives, implications for practice, and archival, historical, and current resources on Korean adoption. International Korean Adoption: A Fifty-Year History of Policy and Practice provides fresh insight into the origins, development, and institutionalization of Korean adoption. Through original research and personal accounts, this revealing text explores how Korean adoptees and their families fit into their family roles—and offers clear perspectives on adoption as child welfare practice. Global implications and politics, as well as the very personal experiences are examined in detail. This source is a one-of-a-kind look into the full spectrum of information pertaining to Korean adoption. Topics in International Korean Adoption: A Fifty-Year History of Policy and Practice include: adoption from the Korean perspective historical origins of Korean adoption in the United States adjustments of young adult adoptees marketing to choosy adopters ethnic identity perspectives on the importance of race and culture in parenting birth mothers’ perspectives sociological approach to race and identity representations of adoptees in Korean popular culture adoption in Australia and the Netherlands much, much more International Korean Adoption: A Fifty-Year History of Policy and Practice is illuminating reading for adoptees, adoptive parents, practitioners, educators, students, and any child welfare professional.