Disruption (adoption)
Encyclopedia
Disruption is the term most commonly used for ending an adoption
. While technically an adoption is disrupted only when it is abandoned by the adopting parent or parents before it is legally completed (an adoption that is reversed after that point is instead referred to in the law as having been dissolved
), in practice the term is used for all adoptions that are ended (more recently, among families disrupting, the euphemism
"re-homing" has become current). It is usually initiated by the parents via a court
petition
, much like a divorce
, to which it is analogous.
While rarely discussed in public, even within the adoption community, the practice has become far more widespread in recent years, especially among those parents who have adopted from Eastern Europe
an countries, particularly Russia
and Romania
, where some children have suffered far more from their institutionalization than their parents were led to believe.
issues that the parents cannot handle, had not been informed of prior to the adoption, or both. Or the parents may have had unrealistic expectations of the child, and they just may not get along. The adoptive parents themselves may have psychological or family issues themselves that led them down the path to adopt. These adoptive parents adopt thinking that the new child in their life will somehow enhance their life.
, pending placement with a new family, unless they reach the age of 18 and legally become adults before this happens. In more and more recent disruptions, however, the disrupting adopters have been in direct contact with a family wishing to adopt and the child can be directly adopted by the new family.
Some adoption agencies and facilitator
s have even begun specializing in post-disruption placements.
If the child was placed privately, either through a lawyer
or an adoption agency, that party is usually required by law to ensure a second placement of the child. However, that requirement is not always enforced, and many parents of Eastern European adoptees in particular have found their agencies to be of no help in finding a new home for their children.
Some don't find state social-services agencies to be much help either, since they're already so overwhelmed and they would have to pay child support
. An underground, possibly illegal, network has arisen in the U.S. over the past decade to help these parents disrupt their adoptions, authorities believe. Some of the people in this have taken in large amounts of children at the same time and have sometimes been arrested for child abuse and neglect
.
. It is seen by many as essentially legally sanctioned abandonment
, especially since there is no corresponding legal procedure available for biological parents who find their children beyond their ability to handle.
Those who do disrupt and discuss it describe the experience as, unsurprisingly, extremely painful, almost like a death in the family, and shameful but ultimately worth it for both the parent and the child. This resolution, however, usually cannot be reached without undergoing extensive counseling and therapy
.
News program 48 Hours told the story of an Atlanta-area couple who ultimately decided to disrupt the adoption of their nine-year-old Russian-born daughter and return her to the orphanage
in Moscow
she had previously lived in. The girl had severe reactive attachment disorder
and the family feared for their physical safety due to her increasing violence. Since the girl had not acquired U.S. citizenship
, her treatment options for that were more limited than they might have been for a domestically-born child.
After she was returned to Russia, Frank Adoption Center, the Washington, D.C.
-based agency that had originally placed her, was able to find a new American family willing to adopt her.
A more recent high-profile case was that of Tristan Dowse, an Indonesian boy adopted by an Irish man, Joe Dowse, and his Azerbaijani wife, Lala. After two years, Tristan was abandoned at the Indonesian orphanage from where he had been obtained and adopted, when, according to the Dowses, the adoption "hadn't worked out." At that stage, his adoption had been recognised by the Irish Adoption Board and he had been granted Irish citizenship. He could only speak English.
In 2005, investigative journalist Ann McElhinney
and Irish Production Company Esras Films reunited the young boy with his natural mother, Suryani. The resulting documentary “The Search for Tristan's Mum” was broadcast by Irish television station RTÉ.
In 2006, an Irish court ordered the Dowses to pay an immediate lump sum of €20,000 to Tristan, maintenance of €350 per month until he is 18 years of age, and a further lump sum of €25,000 when he reaches the age of 18. In addition, Tristan would remain an Irish citizen and enjoy all the rights to the Dowses’ estate. Tristan’s adoption was struck off the Register of Foreign Adoptions held by the Irish Adoption Board and Suryani was appointed his sole legal guardian.
In 2010, seven-year-old Artyom Savelyev/Justin Hansen's adoptive mother Torry Ann Hansen sent him back to Moscow alone with a note explaining why she no longer wanted him.
was passed), for adoptions of Eastern-European born children they may well have increased, and thus the rate may have stabilized.
A U.S. Department of Health and Human Services review of what was known as of 2004 suggests that overall, 10-25% of adoptions are disrupted or dissolved, and that the rate tends to rise with the age of the child at adoption. It admitted that much data remains to be collected before any clear policies to prevent disruptions can be formulated and implemented.
A similar review in 2002 by the British
Department for Education and Skills, done to lobby for changes in data collection procedures, also reported the lack of any centrally collected data to work from.
Adoption
Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting for another and, in so doing, permanently transfers all rights and responsibilities from the original parent or parents...
. While technically an adoption is disrupted only when it is abandoned by the adopting parent or parents before it is legally completed (an adoption that is reversed after that point is instead referred to in the law as having been dissolved
Dissolution (law)
In law, dissolution has multiple meanings.Dissolution is the last stage of liquidation, the process by which a company is brought to an end, and the assets and property of the company redistributed....
), in practice the term is used for all adoptions that are ended (more recently, among families disrupting, the euphemism
Euphemism
A euphemism is the substitution of a mild, inoffensive, relatively uncontroversial phrase for another more frank expression that might offend or otherwise suggest something unpleasant to the audience...
"re-homing" has become current). It is usually initiated by the parents via a court
Court
A court is a form of tribunal, often a governmental institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance with the rule of law...
petition
Petition
A petition is a request to do something, most commonly addressed to a government official or public entity. Petitions to a deity are a form of prayer....
, much like a divorce
Divorce
Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...
, to which it is analogous.
While rarely discussed in public, even within the adoption community, the practice has become far more widespread in recent years, especially among those parents who have adopted from Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
an countries, particularly Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
and Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
, where some children have suffered far more from their institutionalization than their parents were led to believe.
Reasons for disruption
Despite the intense and careful screening that most who wish to adopt children must go through, sometimes the adoption does not succeed. The child may have developmental or psychologicalPsychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
issues that the parents cannot handle, had not been informed of prior to the adoption, or both. Or the parents may have had unrealistic expectations of the child, and they just may not get along. The adoptive parents themselves may have psychological or family issues themselves that led them down the path to adopt. These adoptive parents adopt thinking that the new child in their life will somehow enhance their life.
Aftermath of disruption
A child who is disrupted is usually put first into foster careFoster care
Foster care is the term used for a system in which a minor who has been made a ward is placed in the private home of a state certified caregiver referred to as a "foster parent"....
, pending placement with a new family, unless they reach the age of 18 and legally become adults before this happens. In more and more recent disruptions, however, the disrupting adopters have been in direct contact with a family wishing to adopt and the child can be directly adopted by the new family.
Some adoption agencies and facilitator
Facilitator
A facilitator is someone who helps a group of people understand their common objectives and assists them to plan to achieve them without taking a particular position in the discussion...
s have even begun specializing in post-disruption placements.
If the child was placed privately, either through a lawyer
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
or an adoption agency, that party is usually required by law to ensure a second placement of the child. However, that requirement is not always enforced, and many parents of Eastern European adoptees in particular have found their agencies to be of no help in finding a new home for their children.
Some don't find state social-services agencies to be much help either, since they're already so overwhelmed and they would have to pay child support
Child support
In family law and public policy, child support is an ongoing, periodic payment made by a parent for the financial benefit of a child following the end of a marriage or other relationship...
. An underground, possibly illegal, network has arisen in the U.S. over the past decade to help these parents disrupt their adoptions, authorities believe. Some of the people in this have taken in large amounts of children at the same time and have sometimes been arrested for child abuse and neglect
Child abuse
Child abuse is the physical, sexual, emotional mistreatment, or neglect of a child. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Children And Families define child maltreatment as any act or series of acts of commission or omission by a parent or...
.
Attitudes toward disruption
Few parents who have disrupted adoptions have been willing to talk about the process, since it carries a strong social stigmaSocial stigma
Social stigma is the severe disapproval of or discontent with a person on the grounds of characteristics that distinguish them from other members of a society.Almost all stigma is based on a person differing from social or cultural norms...
. It is seen by many as essentially legally sanctioned abandonment
Abandonment
The term abandonment has a multitude of uses, legal and extra-legal. This "signpost article" provides a guide to the various legal and quasi-legal uses of the word and includes links to articles that deal with each of the distinct concepts at greater length...
, especially since there is no corresponding legal procedure available for biological parents who find their children beyond their ability to handle.
Those who do disrupt and discuss it describe the experience as, unsurprisingly, extremely painful, almost like a death in the family, and shameful but ultimately worth it for both the parent and the child. This resolution, however, usually cannot be reached without undergoing extensive counseling and therapy
Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy is a general term referring to any form of therapeutic interaction or treatment contracted between a trained professional and a client or patient; family, couple or group...
.
High-profile disruptions
One of the rare public accounts of a disruption took place in 2000 when the CBSCBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
News program 48 Hours told the story of an Atlanta-area couple who ultimately decided to disrupt the adoption of their nine-year-old Russian-born daughter and return her to the orphanage
Orphanage
An orphanage is a residential institution devoted to the care of orphans – children whose parents are deceased or otherwise unable or unwilling to care for them...
in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
she had previously lived in. The girl had severe reactive attachment disorder
Reactive attachment disorder
Reactive attachment disorder is described in clinical literature as a severe and relatively uncommon disorder that can affect children. RAD is characterized by markedly disturbed and developmentally inappropriate ways of relating socially in most contexts...
and the family feared for their physical safety due to her increasing violence. Since the girl had not acquired U.S. citizenship
Citizenship
Citizenship is the state of being a citizen of a particular social, political, national, or human resource community. Citizenship status, under social contract theory, carries with it both rights and responsibilities...
, her treatment options for that were more limited than they might have been for a domestically-born child.
After she was returned to Russia, Frank Adoption Center, the Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
-based agency that had originally placed her, was able to find a new American family willing to adopt her.
A more recent high-profile case was that of Tristan Dowse, an Indonesian boy adopted by an Irish man, Joe Dowse, and his Azerbaijani wife, Lala. After two years, Tristan was abandoned at the Indonesian orphanage from where he had been obtained and adopted, when, according to the Dowses, the adoption "hadn't worked out." At that stage, his adoption had been recognised by the Irish Adoption Board and he had been granted Irish citizenship. He could only speak English.
In 2005, investigative journalist Ann McElhinney
Ann McElhinney
Ann McElhinney is an Irish journalist and documentary filmmaker. She has written and produced the political documentaries Not Evil Just Wrong and Mine Your Own Business, as well as The Search for Tristan's Mum and Return to Sender...
and Irish Production Company Esras Films reunited the young boy with his natural mother, Suryani. The resulting documentary “The Search for Tristan's Mum” was broadcast by Irish television station RTÉ.
In 2006, an Irish court ordered the Dowses to pay an immediate lump sum of €20,000 to Tristan, maintenance of €350 per month until he is 18 years of age, and a further lump sum of €25,000 when he reaches the age of 18. In addition, Tristan would remain an Irish citizen and enjoy all the rights to the Dowses’ estate. Tristan’s adoption was struck off the Register of Foreign Adoptions held by the Irish Adoption Board and Suryani was appointed his sole legal guardian.
In 2010, seven-year-old Artyom Savelyev/Justin Hansen's adoptive mother Torry Ann Hansen sent him back to Moscow alone with a note explaining why she no longer wanted him.
Statistics
Since no records are kept or required to be kept of how many disruptions occur beyond those filed in court, which are confidential, there is no way to be sure how many are occurring. Anecdotal evidence, however, has suggested that while they may have decreased as a whole through 1997 (when the Adoption and Safe Families ActAdoption and Safe Families Act
The Adoption and Safe Families Act was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on November 19, 1997 after having been approved by the United States Congress earlier in the month....
was passed), for adoptions of Eastern-European born children they may well have increased, and thus the rate may have stabilized.
A U.S. Department of Health and Human Services review of what was known as of 2004 suggests that overall, 10-25% of adoptions are disrupted or dissolved, and that the rate tends to rise with the age of the child at adoption. It admitted that much data remains to be collected before any clear policies to prevent disruptions can be formulated and implemented.
A similar review in 2002 by the British
Politics of the United Kingdom
The politics of the United Kingdom takes place within the framework of a constitutional monarchy, in which the Monarch is the head of state and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government...
Department for Education and Skills, done to lobby for changes in data collection procedures, also reported the lack of any centrally collected data to work from.