Nonviolent Choice Directory: Help With Crisis Pregnancy & Beyond: Adoption, Foster Care, & Guardianship

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HELP WITH CRISIS PREGNANCY & BEYOND: ADOPTION, FOSTER CARE, & GUARDIANSHIP

[International] [Australia] [Canada] [European Union Member Countries] [Great Britain & Northern Ireland] [Iceland] [India] [Ireland] [Malta] [United States]

International

Association of Jewish Family and Children's Agencies: Adoption Information Directory. If you are a birth mother in Canada or the United States and you want a Jewish adoptive family for your child, this website can direct you to the nearest Jewish family services agency. Also helpful for Jewish families seeking children to adopt.

Disabled Adoptive Parents. Online support group that "seeks to gather and disseminate valuable information to disabled individuals who are looking to adopt, or who have adopted, both domestically and internationally. It does not appear that there is much information out there." See also the Nonviolent Choice Directory resources on Parenting/Childrearing: Disability.

Hague Convention of 29 May 1993 on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption. (English, French.) International treaty governing child placements that cross national borders. Includes contact information for the Central Authorities within all the countries that have ratified the Convention.

International Foster Care Organization. Active worldwide to promote and expand foster care that heeds the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Links to multilingual, regional and country-specific foster care organizations here.

Australia:

Australian InterCountry Adoption Network. Support charity for families who have adopted children from abroad.

Canada:

Canada's Waiting Kids. Online listing. From Adoption Council of Canada (English, French).

North American Council on Adoptable Children. "Promotes and supports permanent families for children and youth in the U.S. and Canada who have been in care, especially those in foster care and those with special needs."

Waiting Parents: Adoption Myths. Deals mostly with misconceptions abdout infant adoption. From CanadaAdopts.com.

European Union Member Countries:

European Judicial Network: Parental Responsibility. (European Union official languages.) Information about the laws affecting decisions about parenting, guardianship, adoption, and foster care in the various European Union member states.

Great Britain (Wales, Scotland, England) & Northern Ireland:

British Association for Adoption and Fostering. (English, some Welsh.) Offers Be My Parent, a database of children who need adoptive and foster families.

Iceland:

Aettleiding.is. (Icelandic.) Resource for adoptive parents.

India:

Central Adoption Resource Authority. (English, Hindi.) Part of the national Ministry of Women and Child Development.

Ireland:

An Bord Uchtala, the Adoption Board of Ireland. Government agency that deals with both domestic and international adoptions.

Malta:

Ministry for the Family and Social Solidarity: Adoption Services.

United States:

Adoption Exchange. From the National Association of Black Social Workers. "Designed to dispel the myth that African American families do not adopt or are not available." In fact, research shows that Blacks adopt three to four times more often than any other ethnic group. See also Black Adoption Myths and Realities and African American Adoption Agencies, both from the North American Council on Adoptable Children.

Adoptive Families of America. Publishes Adoptive Families Magazine and annual "everything you ever wanted to know about adoption" guide. Covers both domestic and international adoption, infant and older-child adoption. Lots of practical, down-to-earth advice and personal stories from diverse angles. Among the most popular features are "Affording Adoption," country-specific sections on international adoption, and a searchable database of adoption agencies.

AdoptUSKids Together. (English; some Spanish-language materials.) Motto: "You don't have to be perfect...to be a perfect parent." Thousands of kids are waiting, especially children with ethnic-minority or multiracial backgrounds, who are past infancy, who have disabilities, and/or who have siblings also in need of adoption. Most are not infants whose birthparents voluntarily placed them for adoption at birth; infants voluntarily placed at or near birth tend to be adopted as babies.

Are you looking to adopt a child now? Could one or more of these very children be yours someday soon? Not all adoptive parents have to wait very long to fill that empty cradle--or perhaps it is a big-kid bed? A service of the US Children's Bureau. See also Child Welfare Gateway: Children Waiting for Adoption (English, Spanish) and Financial Assistance for Families who adopt waiting children from foster care.

American Association of Open Adoption Agencies. Whether you are considering adoption for your child, or whether you want to bring a child into your family through adoption, this nonprofit gives good, solid information on the newer and often far more positive option of open adoption. In open adoption, the birth and adoptive families agree to have some knowledge of and contact with one another during and possibly after the placement. Although there are so many sensational media stories of adoption gone wrong, open placement through an ethical, above-board nonprofit agency can greatly reduce the chance of such problems, even avoid them altogether. In fact, research is now showing that open adoption, as opposed to the older system of secretive, shame-ridden, closed adoption, is in general the healthiest kind for birth families, adoptive families, and adoptees. Just knowing that such a thing as open, ethical adoption exists can for many women ease any pressures they are feeling towards abortion.

This website can help you make a good decision for yourself and your child (or the child you are seeking to adopt) and steer clear of situations where untrustworthy people might, for money and worse, exploit the deepest desires of your heart. For one, you can print out the Adoption Agency Selection Checklist and ask the questions whose answers you have every right to know. Note: For several stories of open adoptions that worked out, please read (.pdf) The American Feminist, Fall/Winter 2003-2004.

Birthparents: Safeguarding the Rights and Well-Being of Birthparents in the Adoption Process. Report from the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute that looks at available studies of voluntary infant adoption. Shows that almost all birthparents today want some degree of openness and ongoing contact when they place their babies for adoption, and that such arrangements can promote better healing and adjustment for birthparents.

Concerned United Birthparents. Lee Campbell started this charity in 1976 as a support group for women and men who had placed their children for adoption and were dealing with the lifelong repercussions, both positive and negative, at a time when the emotions and experiences of birthparents received even less compassion and acknowledgment and more judgmentality than they do on the whole today. CUB now involves adoptees, adoptive families, maternity services and adoption professionals, and just about anyone else concerned with the wellbeing of birthparents and everyone else involved in an adoption. CUB wants to ensure that birth parents and all others involved in adoption receive optimal support before, during, and after a child's placement or contemplated placment. To that end, CUB is a major, much-needed voice for reforms to make the adoption process open, voluntary, and thus more humane.

Family Equality Council (formerly Family Pride). National nonprofit advocate for the human rights of LGBT (lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgendered) persons and their families, including adoptive and foster parents and their children. One-fifth of gay men and one-third of lesbians in the US are parents--and more than that want to be, but are prevented by law from adopting or fostering. Note: A recent report from the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute poses the question Expanding Resources for Children: Is Adoption By Gays and Lesbians Part of the Answer for Boys and Girls Who Need Homes? and answers "yes."

Guardianship: From Child Welfare Info Gateway and Guardianship of Children: Nolo Resource Center. Guardianship of children is most often spoken of as a way to ensure that, in the event of your death, your child(ren) get proper care from a person you know and trust. However little discussed it might be for this purpose, it is also an option that many people in crisis pregnancies might want to consider. It can be a more reversible and flexible arrangement than foster care or adoption, even foster care or adoption by your relatives. For example, if you prefer to parent your child but face short-term obstacles to that, guardianship might work for you and your child(ren. But please inform yourself on all your options and see for yourself what you wish to do next.

Indian Child Welfare Act. This law governs placement of American Indian and Alaska Native children. Information from NICWA, the National Indian Child Welfare Association.

Intercountry Adoption. From the US State Department.

Kinship Care. Resources on issues concerning kinship/related caregivers of children, whether they are guardians, relative foster or adoptive parents, or caregivers through some other arrangement, temporary or permanent. These issues include financial assistance and ways that communities can support kinship caregivers and their families. From the Children's Defense Fund, one of the leading US advocates for strong, healthy families.

National Foster Parent Association. Mission: "To support foster parents in achieving safety, permanence and well-being for the children and youth in their care...NFPA does not discriminate against a person because of age, race, ethnic heritage, gender, religion, or sexual orientation. NFPA adheres to the Americans with Disabilities Act." Whether or not you wish to become a foster parent yourself, please also see National Foster Care Month to educate yourself about the issues and ways that you can help foster families.

One Church One Child-National Network of Adoption Advocacy Programs.