ADOPTIONS UNDER STRESS
With numbers dropping, would-be parents affected by agency problems
For legions of Americans craving a chance to adopt children, a confluence of daunting trends makes this an especially distressing time.
The overall number of U.S. adoptions has dropped significantly in recent years, straining the viability of many adoption agencies and drawing some into conduct that authorities describe as unethical or worse.
Chuck Johnson, CEO of the National Council for Adoption, estimates that 1 million families are trying to adopt at any given time.
“No matter where they go, unless they’re super lucky, they’re going to be in for a long wait,” Johnson said. “They’re going to be in a slow, painful process for foster care or in this massive competition for the limited number of healthy infants — and that’s where the situation is ripe for fraud. There are so many families who want to adopt, and so few options for them.”
Inevitably, some people fall victim to scams. In March, a woman from North Carolina was accused of using the Internet to fleece a dozen would-be adoptive parents.
In the absence of comprehensive federal figures, Johnson’s council, which represents more than 120 adoption agencies, periodically tries to tally the total number of adoptions in the U.S. Its latest count, released in February, showed a 17 per cent drop from 133,737 adoptions in 2007 to 110,373 in 2014. Most of the decline was due to a sharp decrease in the number of international adoptions; the number of infant adop- tions remained relatively stable at about 18,000, as did adoptions out of foster care at about 50,000.
Thousands of clients seeking to adopt have been buffeted recently by the downfall of their agencies, in some cases after having paid many thousands of dollars over several years.
The State Department, alleging extensive improprieties in handling international adoptions, shut down Ohio-based European Adoption Consultants in December. It operated in a dozen foreign countries.
Newlyweds Christopher Koontz and Bobby Duong of Long Beach, California, said they’d paid the now bankrupt Independent Adoption Agency, licensed in eight states, about $16,000 over nearly two years. They have approached another agency, but Koontz is disillusioned.
“It’s very much run like a timeshare presentation,” he said. “It’s a high pressure sales pitch, and then as soon as you cut the cheque it’s like you’re dealing with a completely different group of people.”
Josh Christian, a lawyer in South Carolina, was a client of European Adoption Consultants. He estimates he and his wife paid $10,000 extra to complete the adoptions of two sisters from Uganda, who had to spend more time in an or- phanage because of the agency’s shutdown.
EAC was accused by the State Department of charging excessively high fees, misrepresenting information about children, and other improprieties. The agency considered the shutdown unwarranted and was considering an appeal.
Many agencies specializing in international adoptions have closed in recent years, and others have struggled, as the number of foreign children adopted by Americans has plunged. The latest federal figures, for the 2016 fiscal year, reported 5,372 adoptions from abroad, down more than 76 per cent from the high of 22,884 in 2004.
The State Department blames an increase in domestic adoptions in China, Russia’s suspension of adoptions by Americans, and corruption scandals that shut down international adoptions in several countries.
One of the largest U.S. agencies, Bethany Christian Services, continues to grow even as its adoptions dropped from 1,980 in 2010 to fewer than 1,300 in 2016. It has expanded various other services in the U.S., including foster care and family counselling, and has launched programs overseas to encourage foster care and adoption of orphans in their home country.
Of the foreign children who are available for adoption by Americans, an increasingly large share have physical or emotional complications, highlighting the need for agencies to ensure parents adopting these children are wellprepared in advance of the adoption and supported afterward.