What is adoption?
Adoption is a way of providing a child or children who cannot be raised by their own parents with a new family. It is a legal procedure, which transfers the parental responsibility for the child to the adoptive parents and cannot be reversed, except in very rare circumstances. An adopted child becomes a full member of the new family and usually changes their surname to that of their adoptive parents.1
Why adopting?
Adoption is a very personal decision for prospective parents. Some couples decide to adopt because they cannot have a biological child because of infertility. In addition to infertility, some women have conditions that make a pregnancy impossible or unadvised. In other cases, some couples may be fully capable of conceiving and having a healthy pregnancy, but they are worried about passing on genetic diseases. Parents who adopt internationally often want to give a child from a poor environment an opportunity to grow well.
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Do you know anyone who has been adopted?
DO
1 Do you think adopted children should know they have been adopted? Why? I Why not?
Who can adopt?
Since 2019, anyone over 21, not only married couples, but single parents, disabled people, and also elderly people can adopt. The well-being of the adopted child is crucial and it is what has to be taken into consideration when deciding who will adopt. What must be guaranteed is the continuity in the affective bond between the adopted child and the adoptive family.
How to adopt?
Adoptions are generally managed by government agencies or private institutions. To give a child to an adoptive family in Italy, an approval of the court is necessary. Unfortunately, long times and complex bureaucracy result in many families giving up after years of waiting. An adoption application is valid for three years but while national adoptions are free, international adoptions1 have a cost.
What is the difference between adoption and fostering?
Fostering a child is usually temporary. The responsibility for the child in foster care is shared between the carers, the local authority, and the child’s parents. Sometimes fostering is a long-term plan and sometimes it ends with adoption. Even though it does not provide the child with the same legal security as adoption, it can be the right solution for some children.
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1 History has shown that female children tend to account for the majority of international adoptions, except for the most recent statistics found in 2016, where male children surpassed the females,
51 .6% to 48.4%.