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Today in the United States there is a lack of consensus about what constitutes ethical practice in adoption. Although ethics in adoption is a hot topic, adoption specialists and professionals are unsure about how to serve the best interests of children who need to be adopted and how birth parents, adoptive parents, and adult adoptees ought to be served. This failure to identify and prioritize ethical standards in adoption has resulted in a lack of ethical decision-making and inadequate-and sometimes fraudulent-treatment of those seeking adoption-related services.
Destined to be seminal in the fields of ethics and adoption, this books offers numerous case studies describing what is wrong with America's adoption system, illustrating what the lack of applied ethical standards in adoption does to adoptees and those who love them, and raising many questions about what adoption facilitators are doing, who is accountable for what they are doing, and whose interests they are serving.
List of contents
Foreword by Randolph Severson
Introduction
FoundationsLiving the Experience
Values in Adoption
ExplorationsEthical Inquiry
Ethical Codes Influencing Adoption Practice
ContentionsWhen Professional Values Collide
RecommendationsRecommended Model for Ethical Standards in Adoption
ChallengesChallenges to Change
Appendix A: Resources
Appendix B: Are You Considering Adoption? Information for Expectant Parents
Appendix C: Texas Child Protective Services Supervisor Competencies
Glossary
References
Index
About the author
L. ANNE BABB is Executive Director of a nonprofit adoption advocacy center, the Family Tree Adoption and Counseling Center in Norman, Oklahoma. She is recognized as one of the country's foremost public servants and adoption advocates for her work on behalf of adoptable children and is the co-author of
Adopting and Advocating for the Special Needs Child (Bergin & Garvey, 1997).
