World Adoption Month (November) is a month dedicated to bringing awareness of adoption. Globally, across the world, society acknowledges the lives of people impacted by adoptions. Those who facilitate the process also use this month as an opportunity to create awareness and educate society to learn more about adoptions. Some refer to National Adoption Month as a time to celebrate the families that have grown through adoptions. Others struggle and are reminded of the difficulties and losses that come with adoption.
According to the UN, an estimated 260,000 adoptions take place worldwide each year. Based on statistics from South Africa’s Department of Social Development, 15068 adoptions have been registered in South Africa between April 2010 to March 2020.
This might appear to be small when compared to national numbers of persons under the age of 18 in the SA population, but when one acknowledges that adoptions impact not only children, but families and communities for generations, it becomes a significant number.
Through shared LIVED experiences, we have come to realise that adoptions are complex and life-altering. It affects many people and is often characterised by a theme of ‘opposites’- loss versus gain, hopelessness versus hope, have versus have not, and truth versus deception. Therefore, when we acknowledge World Adoption Month, we also need to be mindful that while for some this is a time during which adoption with all its complexities is embraced and celebrated, for others it is a time where they are reminded of all the significant losses that came with adoption.
Adoption should be relevant and important to us. According to our Childcare and Protection policy, many South African children grow up in families facing multiple and frequently intersecting vulnerabilities and multiple risk factors – poverty, exposure to domestic violence, neglect, abuse, exploitation, disrupted families, lack of parental care, abandonment, unplanned crisis pregnancies, substance abuse, and mental health issues – and many children fall through the public safety nets. They absolutely should be entitled to responsive services to protect them and to return them or place them in a nurturing family environment.
As a country and sector, we are striving to have legally compliant and developmentally effective childcare and protection systems and services aimed at preserving, protecting, and preventing the breakdown of families, yet there are significant numbers of children who will only enjoy permanent family care through adoption.
Despite the legal provisions and a clear need for adoptions, adoption numbers remain low in South Africa. It is perceived to be problematic, difficult, complicated, and has a bad reputation in the public domain. This is a result of many factors, including examples and experiences of unethical adoption practices, both locally and internationally.
As service providers working in this field in South Africa, we need to see World Adoption Month as an opportunity to raise awareness, share experiences, and promote best practices but most importantly, we should have real conversations about how we approach and position adoptions and how it affects us all.
We should implement lessons learned through the LIVED experiences from first parents, adoptive parents and most importantly, adoptees, and we should continue to learn through their experiences. It shows us how we should adjust our practice and improve our services to birth parents, adoptive parents, and adoptees across the different life cycles of adoption. We need to rethink how we serve the parties of the tri-ad both during the adoption process and after placement.
The child and their wellbeing at all times needs to be at the centre and heart of all decision-making. We should prioritise the permanency planning of children. We should have an integrated approach to adoption by ensuring that we first aim to keep the family intact and explore all avenues to support this. We need to realise that poverty and a lack of education should not be a reason for adoption. We need to give due consideration and support to birth parents to enable them to care for their children. We need to undertake legally compliant investigations ensuring that all parties understand their rights in adoptions.
We need to adequately prepare and equip adoptive parents to understand their motivations, and their capacity to parent a child who has experienced trauma and loss. We should promote a spirit of openness in adoptions, where a child’s adoption story will be shared with that child in an age-appropriate manner. Our adoption social workers should be competent and know the complexities of adoption. We should understand the importance of cultural heritage and parenting strategies for transracial adoptions. We should continue to provide support after the adoption and most importantly, ensure that our practices are professional and ethical.
Adoptions are life-changing and deserve our insight, understanding, and commitment to learn and improve!
In the words of an adoptee: “The question – How does it feel not knowing who your parents were? – is for me the same as asking ‘how does it feel to never have visited the moon? The lack of facts is a fact. Insecure and unknown is a constant part of my identity. I strongly feel that I had two births: the second being adopted, as a continuation of the first, but the first as a prerequisite for the second. I got a second chance to life, thanks to unknown people’s willingness, dedication, stubbornness, and cooperation. So utterly dependent on others’ will and decisions”.
