“That was Then,but This is Now”: Historical Perspectives on Intercountry Adoption and Domestic Child Adoption in Australian Public Policy

This paper brings historical perspectives to bear on the ambivalent and contradictory position of adoption in Australian public policy. It examines the divergent histories of Australian domestic and intercountry adoption (ICA) since the mid‐1970s and the impact of these histories on adoption policy in Australia. It identifies tendencies in contemporary ICA to repeat elements of pre‐reform era domestic adoption. In particular, it is argued that the resistance of ICA to the move to openness in local adoption has been an unacknowledged driver of ICA for many Australian families. We offer corrective readings of the rise of ICA in relation to domestic adoption and conclude by offering alternatives for adoption policy which better align the two kinds of adoption, focusing on the needs of children, as distinct from the desires of adults.     

Ethical Issues in the Use of Putative Father Registries in Infant Adoption: Implications for Administrators and Practitioners

Infant adoption policy and practices are laden with potential ethical dilemmas for adoption professionals, state and federal government, and society in general. Putative father registries raise new ethical issues in the provision of adoption services and the rights and roles of birthfathers. Birthfathers have relatively little power in the policy arena and the power differential between the parties in an adoption is evident. Administrators and practitioners at all levels of practice have an obligation to see that birthfathers are treated fairly and with dignity. This article examines the issues related to the use of putative father registries and the ethical implications regarding birthfather rights.     

Interjurisdictional placement of children in foster care

As the population of children in foster care has increased and more children are freed for adoption, foster and adoptive families are needed in ever increasing numbers. One avenue for expanding the pool of families is through placement of children with families in other counties and states. This article considers the policy and practice implications of interjurisdictional placement in the context of foster care, adoption, and kinship care and suggests directions for interjurisdictional adoption practice and policy.     

Child Welfare Social Workers and Open Adoption Myths

Open adoption can have positive effects on the psychological well-being of adopted children. This study's purpose was to explore child welfare social workers' open adoption attitudes and their agreement with open adoption myths in predicting the relationship with their levels of openness toward open adoption. This study showed that open adoption attitudes, open adoption myths, and area of practice have an association with the levels of openness toward open adoption in a group of child welfare social workers. This information could be beneficial to policy makers and professionals who may be interested in increasing the facilitation of open adoption.     

The multiethnic placement act: Implications for social work practice

The issue of transracial adoption has been a controversial issue in foster care and adoption placement decisions. In 1994, the 104th Congress passed the Multiethnic Placement Act (MEPA), forbidding agencies receiving federal funds from solely considering race, culture, and ethnicity in making foster care and adoption placement decisions. Congress mandated that the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) develop policy guidelines for child placement agencies to follow. In April 1995, DHHS issued the guidelines that agencies were to follow. The authors of the paper discuss the MEPA, DHHS's policy guidelines for agencies and the guidelines' legal support, and the implications for social work practice in foster care and adoption placements.     

Supply and Demand

Abstract

The adoption of infants and very young children will be affected in the future by a range of forces that affect the supply and demand sides of adoption. Demographic trends and social, technological, and economic factors bearing on adoption seeking and relinquish-ment will be critical factors. These forces will have important implications for adoption policy and practice and warrant careful consideration in relation to both infant adoption and the adoption of other children whose needs for adoptive families will continue into the future.     

The future of adoption for children in foster care: Demographics in a changing socio-political environment

As the next century unfolds, adoption will be influenced by economic, social, and political factors that will influence the number of children needing adoption and the number of families seeking to adopt. For children in foster care who need adoption, these forces are likely to challenge current policy and practice and place greater demands on the child welfare system to respond to the needs of a growing number of children who cannot be reunited with their birth families. Demographic data and the sociopolitical factors impacting the adoption of children in foster care suggest that adoption demand will increase dramatically in the near future, far outstripping the current, already inadequate supply of adoptive families. While demand is not likely to be amenable to any significant level of change given the poverty-related forces already at work, supply can be more readily effected by policy and practice that embrace creative strategies to recruit and support adoptive families. The dynamics of supply and demand can provide the conceptual framework to support resource reallocation and shape a positive future for the adoption of children in foster care     

The Changing Environment of Adoption Practice: Focus on Intercountry Adoption to the United States

This article reviews the history of domestic and international adoption, examines international agreements and U.S. statutes that govern intercountry adoption, and assesses the current landscape of adoption agency practice, with major emphasis on the United States. The article focuses specifically on environmental factors that have driven change in both practice and policy concerning international adoption. The theoretical lens of population ecology offers a helpful perspective on the demographic and cultural trends that have transformed adoption and adoption agencies, particularly as they shifted toward international placements beginning in the mid-twentieth century.     

The Bologna process in European and post-Soviet higher education: institutional legacies and policy adoption

This paper addresses the puzzle of the unlikeliness of the implementation of elements of the Bologna Process agenda in Europe and post-Soviet higher education systems. Following mainstream policy science theories, the policy initiative would be qualified as “prone to failure”, but surprisingly many governments took up the challenge to develop regulations and guidelines and to change the structures of their higher education systems. Looking at the adoption of Bologna process elements in various countries – east and west – I will be able to point at factors that contribute to explaining why and to what extent countries engaged with the process and hence to contribute to the literature on Europeanisation and policy adoption.     

The Politics of Expanding Healthcare Access to the Poor and Informal Sectors

How do the politics of agenda setting and policy adoption operate in the arena of healthcare reform in the industrializing world? Literature on the twenty‐first‐century developmental state emphasizes the role of democratic competition and civil society in causing political parties to take up new agendas, while power resources theory stresses the role of left‐wing political parties and labor unions in policy adoption. Yet, core tenets of these theories have not been considered extensively in light of dynamics in the industrializing world. This article examines the politics of policy adoption in countries that have recently aimed to provide healthcare access and financial protection to the poor and people in the informal sector in Mexico and Turkey. In line with literature on the twenty‐first‐century developmental state, we find democratic competition to play an important role in causing political parties to take up new agendas. However, examination of the cases illuminates surprising dynamics that challenge important elements of sociological theory: right‐leaning political parties played important roles in adoption, while labor unions and left‐wing parties oppose reform in the cases. Public health‐minded physicians leading change teams played important roles in agenda setting and leading the process of implementation.     

Adoption Research: An Assessment of Empirical Contributions to the Advancement of Adoption Practice

This article examines the current state of adoption research as it applies to each member of the adoption triad. It includes a review of the research that has focused on birth mothers and fathers in both domestic and international adoptions; adopted children, adolescents, and adults; and adoptive parents. The paper also examines the areas of research in which a paucity of studies currently exist, and suggests that although major contributions to clinical practice and policy have been made, the dialogue should continue to seek to study issues such as international adoption and the adoption of children in foster care.     

How to Overcome Deadlock in EU Immigration Politics

Immigration policy is a very unlikely case for EU integration. EU policy‐making is constrained by member states' sovereignty claims and interest heterogeneity. Still, tentative integration towards EU conditions of entry and residence for some immigrant categories can be observed. By using the example of the skilled labour migration directive, the article explains how deadlock in policy‐making was overcome. It explores the factors that led to agreement in the EU immigration policy area, from the Commission's first proposal on labour migration in 2001 to its adoption in 2009. Explanations for integration in the policy area are member states' venue shopping the EU level for changing domestic legislation, their interest in locking‐in national standards in EU law, and the EU Commission's agenda‐framing. Strategic partitioning of policy was also used by actors to overcome deadlock in policy‐making. The reframing of policies, by reducing their scope to a few narrowly defined immigrant categories, influenced their adoption. This mechanism was observed in studying the eight years of policy‐making leading to the labour migration directive. The longitudinal analysis helps to identify the key dynamics that define this nascent EU policy area.     

Adoption of Sustainable Agricultural Practices: Diffusion,Farm Structure,and Profitability1

Abstract This paper employs diffusion and farm-structure variables to explain variations in Montana farmers' adoption of two kinds of sustainable agricultural practices: those involving intensive management and those which require fewer purchased inputs. While perceived profitability was found to be the most important factor affecting adoption of both, the independent variables had different effects on beliefs about net economic returns as well as on adoption of the two practices. Type of farm enterprise played a larger role in adoption of the low-input practices than the management intensive ones; access to information was more important for the latter. Implications for policy are discussed.     

Impact of the Adoption of Tobacco-Free Campus Policies on Student Enrollment at Colleges and Universities,North Carolina, 2001–2010

Abstract

Objective: College and university administrators have expressed concern that adoption of tobacco-free policies may reduce applications and enrollment. This study examines adoption and implementation of 100% tobacco-free campus policies by institutions of higher education on applications and enrollment. Participants: North Carolina private colleges and universities and public community colleges. Analysis was conducted in 2011. Methods: Student enrollment and application data were analyzed by campus type to determine (a) if there was a difference in student applications and enrollment before and after policy implementation, and (b) if there was a difference in student applications and enrollment for campuses with versus without a policy. Results: No significant differences were found in student enrollment or applications when comparing years prior to and following policy implementation or when comparing with institutions without 100% tobacco-free campus policies. Conclusions: The authors found no evidence that 100% tobacco-free policy adoption had an impact on student enrollment or applications.     

Evaluating employee assistance policy in an HMO-based alcoholism project.

One aspect of successful employee assistance program (EAP) implementation is the adoption of a formal, written policy, reflecting company commitment to EAP guidelines and goals. This study of criteria predictive of such policy adoption was conducted at the occupational alcoholism project of a New England health maintenance organization (HMO). Data on nearly 400 organizations contacted by occupational program consultants (OPCs) over a 20-month period were collected by questionnaire and interview. One third of these organizations adopted employee assistance policies and set about establishing formal programs. Stepwise multiple regression is the principal method used to pinpoint the correlates of policy adoption. Two of the most important of these are the attitudes of contact persons within the organization toward alcoholism and employee assistance programs, particularly their admission of alcohol problems within their social networks; and the consultants' persistence and marketing skills. The adopting organizations also had reputations for being progressive, and actively concerned about employee welfare; they tended to be large, their executives autonomous, and their union membership rates high. Inhibiting policy acceptance were fears that a written policy would jeopardize the reputation and image of the organization, and that an employee assistance program would remove internal control of personal procedures. The adequacy of the evaluative data and methods are discussed, and recommendations are offered in the interests of streamlining the efforts of OPCs and of achieving greater penetration of targeted organizations.     

Going to the Courts Twice: A Critical Appraisal of the UK’s Policy of Re‐adoption for Intercountry Adoptions

The policy of re‐adoption for UK‐citizen parents of intercountry adopted children is designed to protect children and safeguard their best interests, but in fact may breach a variety of rights and international Conventions, and when applied to specific cases can lead to more harm than good. In this review, I want to argue that the policy of re‐adoption be reconsidered to minimise the distress to families when they return to the UK with their already legally adopted children. © 2011 The Author(s). Children & Society © 2011 National Children’s Bureau and Blackwell Publishing Limited.     

Families adopting children with or at-risk of HIV infection

This paper examines the issue of adoption for children from the AIDS epidemic. The policies that impact the adoption of children from the epidemic are reviewed. A pilot study of families adopting these children is presented with recommendations for policy development, practive and research.     

White Australian Adoptive Mothers' Understandings of Birth Cultures and Families

This paper reports an analysis of interviews conducted with 10 White Australian women who had undertaken intercountry adoption. The paper begins with an overview of how issues of culture play out within discourses of intercountry adoption in general and how this occurs specifically in Australian policy in regard to intercountry adoption. The analysis highlights how the interviewees were in many ways inculcated in broader Australian discourses of intercountry adoption, as much as in some instances there was an attempt to resist this. The paper concludes by discussing how it might be possible for White adoptive mothers in Australia to do other than remain complicit with marginalizing accounts of adoptive children's birth cultures and parents.     

Policy Streams and Immigration to Russia: Competing and Complementary Interests at the Federal and Local Levels

This article uses Kingdon's Multiple Streams Framework to explain forms of national‐ and region‐level governance used in the Russian Federation to manage unprecedented levels of international immigration. First, we identify the ways that the Russian federal government has legislated and governed international migration from 1991 through 2010. We then compare the federal level to the case of the Krasnodar region, an ethnically diverse region in the North Caucasus. We find that that migration policy adoption in Russia at the federal level is relatively immune to economic trends or labour needs but more sensitive to foreign and domestic political objectives. At the regional level, local socio‐political and economic concerns predominate and political objectives are secondary. Finally, we argue that migration policy changes or adopted policy at the regional level may be explained by an interaction effect between changes in political leadership, federal level policy adoption, and regional level context.     

Exploitation of Intercountry Adoption: Toward Common Understanding and Action

The conflation of various illicit intercountry adoption activities under the umbrella of “child trafficking” has caused confusion in the adoption literature. Utilizing a pragmatic approach, this article explores the cacophony of opinions that have arisen with regard to trafficking in illicit adoption activities and identifies the concept of exploitation as a useful framework for differentiating among them. To improve and increase the accuracy of research, policy, and programming, the authors suggest the new labels child trafficking, the sale of children, birth mother trafficking, and abuse of process for use in identifying and discussing different forms illicit adoption.