Adoptive Parent Perspectives on Placing an Intercountry Adopted Child with a Disability in out of Home Care

Background and Purpose:  According to the 2010 Census, 7.8% of intercountry adopted children in the U.S. have one disability and 3.4% have multiple disabilities. Research has found that children adopted from foster care with emotional, behavioral or developmental disabilities may experience an out of home setting (including foster care, group home, residential treatment center or another adoptive family) after adoption finalization as a result of the child’s disability. However there is no research that explores out of home placements for intercountry adopted children with a disability.

This paper examined the perspectives of adoptive parents that placed a intercountry adopted child with a disability in out of home care to explore the impact of their child’s disability on their decision to place the child in a setting outside of the family home.

Methods: Nineteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with parents of intercountry adopted children with disabilities. Parents were white (100%) and predominantly female (84%), married (68%), and highly educated (73.7 Master’s or professional degree). Participants were recruited through flyers distributed by social service agencies and through social media sites. Interviews were transcribed and coded using principles of constructivist grounded theory. Interviews elicited participants’ pre- and post-adoption narratives, including how parents thought about disability or risk of disability, ways in which they navigated supports and services for their child, and views on adoption practices and services.

Findings:  Four themes emerged from the data. First, adoptive parents begin the intercountry adoption process with constructs about disability as physical and medical defects and the belief that intercountry adopted children did not have the social, emotional and disability problems of children in foster care. These constructs gave adoptive parents a false sense of preventing the adoption of a child with, or at risk for, a disability. Parents viewed adoption agency workers as validating the ability to adopt a child without a disability rather than exploring the risks.

Parent’s definitions of disability and intercountry adoption impacted type of post-adoption services used, types of out of home placement options they sought, and whether or not to dissolve the adoption after placing the child out of the home. Parents also incurred heavy financial, social, relational and personal costs as a result of their choices. Parents described social isolation, stigma, broken or strained relationships due to their child’s out of home care. Finally, parents’ experienced behavioral and emotional consequences including advocacy, re-defining disability, constructing new ways of defining family and recognizing personal strengths.

Conclusion and Implications: Results of the study accentuate the importance of providing pre-adoption education and awareness that an intercountry adopted child may have, or be at risk of developing, a disability. Adoption agencies may better serve families by helping them prepare for, rather than attempt to prevent, the adoption of a child with disabilities. Increased training of adoption agency workers on disabilities and providing robust post-adoption services for families would better prepare and support intercountry adopted children and their families and reduce the need for out of home care.