Totally freaking wired on caffeine
Oct 28, 2005 Adoption
I was driving to my friend’s house today (herself an adoptive parent) and thinking about the stats and why they weren’t scanning for me. I screwed up because I took the 1% number and forgot that applied to pregnant women so the seeking to adopt number is higher — I was doing percentages but forgot I was doing percentages of a larger number.
I will refer you to this article while I try to come down off my buzz.
Recommendations for Adopting Parents by Bill Betzen
Please do not believe the often quoted statistic that there are 40 families waiting for every baby placed. That is not true unless you are talking of only the “healthy Anglo baby” being placed with NO adoption fee and NO home study needed. Once families are required to have any education about adoption, and a home study, the number of families wanting to adopt begins to go below 40 per child available. Once you begin to charge an adoption fee the number of families goes down further. As the adoption fee rises above $10,000 the number of families begins to go down rapidly. Once you move to the understanding of adoption issues required for a family to prefer a fully open adoption for their child, the number of families goes down even further. Once you realize that these families wanting a fully open adoption must become visible in their own communities, then the number of families with enough self confidence to be so visible goes down even further.
I don’t know where he gets his numbers but I’m thinking (and I’ll add that he’s an adoption professional who has been working in the field for some time) that this is shaking down that “taking concrete steps to adopt” number.
What I think we need is what “taking concrete steps” actually means. (Reading a book? Going to a training? Calling agencies for brochures?) I’m going to see if I can find the study and get more info.
It looks like the difficulties of the process help people to self-select out. Some move on to other kinds of adoption, some leave adoption entirely. But I do think much of the “shortage” is perceived and not really true. More to come.
October 28th, 2005 at 11:35 pm
I think the “shortage” is about healthy, white babies, is what I think. I think “shortage” conceals race issues and other issues about what is considered to be an adoptable baby.