Characteristics of good adoption agency

I know Central Adoption Resource Agency is doing a fabulous job of regulating the adoption agencies in India ever since it was established. But the autonomous body established by an act of the central government can do only so much to regulate with limited resources. It is the duty of the adoption agencies to implement best practices themselves and keep improving processes and procedures based on their own experiences. There are many parents who are seeking adoption in India and abroad and there are many children who need families to have a wonderful future. The adoption agencies should have a not-for-profit attitude and their primary objective should be to serve the children in need and secure their future. They need to separate out the act of giving children on adoption to the parents from raising funds. If they volunteer to give, they should gladly accept it but their ability to give donations should not determine whether they are eligible to get a child on adoption.

Every adoption agency should have a prominent citizens’ advisory committee to advice on administration of the adoption agency. This committee should consist of voluntary social-minded citizens and should be responsible for financial overview, discipline overview, processes and procedures overview, etc. They should definitely have a responsible Administrative Officer who should be a well-educated professional with experience in adoption and conversant with CARA regulations. They should have voluntary or non-voluntary social workers who should act as foster mother for every infant taken inside the adoption agency. The proportion of foster mothers should be one foster mother for two to three infants and no more than that.

There should be a separate nursery for infants with play toys that are appropriate for their age with social workers available round the clock to monitor the infants. There has to be a crèche for children who are 3 years or older and separate social workers should be assigned for that section. All children who reach the age to go to school should be formally admitted to a school and there should be a transportation arrangement made for them to go and come back from school. The feeding of children should happen at specific time every day. All children should be periodically taken to a pediatrician for routine medical checkup and all vaccinations and polio drops should be given on time.

The adoption agencies should also have close tie-up with psychologists, social workers, pediatricians and law firms to take care of their adoption processes. There should be a clearly written process for interviewing the parents within 90 days of receipt of application and the parents should be communicated within 30 days after the interview whether they are eligible to receive a child or not subject to availability. How the adoption agency matches the children with the parents should be transparent to adopting parents and they should also be given access to complete medical records on temporary custody. The parents who are seeking adoption should be permitted in writing to examine the child with their own pediatrician. The care of the children should take priority over everything and part of that care should include treating the adopting parents’ right so that they could explain their pleasant experience to many aspiring parents. There should be a forum for adopted parents to interact with each other post adoption and share each others’ experience even though each child is different.

All adoption agencies should be public charitable trust with their financial statements filed with government agencies. Before sending applications, parents should be able to access as much information as possible about the adoption agencies. There should be an annual report submitted to the prominent citizens’ committee about the number of children brought into the institutions and what are the efforts made to provide children on adoption to aspiring parents. While processing adoption to give children in adoption to wrong hands is bad, it is also equally bad to deprive aspiring parents to adopt, especially when children are available in the adoption agencies. There should be a list of healthy children available on a nationwide network so that children will have better prospect to get adopted sooner.

CARA or department for welfare of women and children should periodically review the functioning of every adoption agency. They should be ranked based on the quality of support they provide to the children, processes and procedures, number of children adopted, post adoption support, etc. There should be formal grant from the central government to support adoption agencies based on their performance.

 

Dear VJ,

Thank you again. Please feel free to add if you can think of anything else.

Viswa

 

Dear VJ,

Whenever you have time. I value your opinion and I enjoy reading everyone of your helpful notes in response to anxious parents.

Viswa