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Intercountry adoptive parent education

• Module 1 - Introduction
  • What is adoption?
  • Who is involved in the adoption process?
  • The adoption process
  • Adoption Services Queensland
  • Suggested reading
• Module 2 - The needs of overseas children requiring permanent adoptive placements in Queensland
  • Overseas country information
  • Are you suited to intercountry adoption?
  • Motivation to adopt
  • Issues and challenges faced by adoptive parents
  • Placement proposals
  • Building resilience with your adopted child
  • Suggested reading
• Module 3 - Child development
  • Understanding child development
  • Factors that impact on child development
  • A child's understanding of adoption
  • Suggested reading
• Module 4 - Attachment and bonding
  • Attachment theory
  • What is attachment and bonding?
  • Types of attachment
  • Attachment behaviour
  • Signs of healthy attachment and bonding
  • Attachment disorder
  • Impact of attachment on adoptive parenting
  • The arousal-relaxation cycle
  • Developing an attachment with your child
  • Suggested reading
• Module 5 - Separation, grief and loss
  • Definition of loss and grief
  • The impact of loss on adoptive parents
  • The impact of loss on adopted children
  • Effects and strategies for dealing with a child's loss
  • Understanding the impact of loss on an adopted child
  • The impact of loss on birth parents
  • The grief process
  • Suggested reading
• Module 6 - Identity and culture
  • Your feelings about ethnic background and culture
  • The impact of adoption on your family
  • Definition of ethnicity, culture and identity
  • Addressing cultural identity
  • The cultural heritage plan
  • Barriers to developing a child's cultural identity
  • A child's racial awareness
  • Stages of development of racial identity
  • Combating racism
  • Telling your child they are adopted
  • The adoptive family life cycle
  • Suggested reading
• Module 7 - Preparing for assessment
  • Departmental assessment considerations
  • Assessing a couple's suitability
  • Meeting the assessment criteria
  • The assessment process
  • Placement considerations
  • Assessors - their perspective
  • Establishing a family tree and Ecomap
  • Suggested reading
• Module 8 - Placement information
  • Medical assessment of children adopted from overseas
  • Lodging an application with the Department of Immigration and Citizenship
  • Migration Health Check
  • Naming your child
  • Travel arrangements
  • Arrival in Australia
  • Queensland Birth Certificate
  • Australian Citizenship
  • Adoptive parent support groups
  • Life Story Book
  • Suggested reading
• Module 9 - General reading
• Family profile
  • My family profile
• Printable version
• Contacts

Are you suited to intercountry adoption?

The question of whether intercountry adoption will be a positive experience for the child placed in your family, and for your family, is a complex matter.

Prospective adoptive parents are assessed for their suitability in parenting a child from another country, ethnicity and culture.

It is important that you consider the following issues with intercountry adoption:

• The need to challenge racist and prejudice attitudes in yourself, your family and your friends, and how you will deal with this when you are creating a multicultural family.
• Adoption has long-term implications for all of the involved parties. A child should never be used to mend a broken relationship, to fill a gap in someone's life or be a social duty.
• Your ability to parent a child of unknown background.
• Your ability to address issues arising from a child's early experiences of deprivation, institutionalisation or abuse.
• Your ability to parent a child who may be the only one out of a sibling group being placed for adoption.
• Your ability to assist a child to understand their culture and ethnicity.
• Your ability to preserve and integrate a child's sense of cultural identity into your lives on a long-term basis.
• Your ability to address issues of 'positive racism' where a child from overseas is seen as interesting, exotic or an object of curiosity, rather than as a person in their own right.
• The impact of the placement of an adopted child from overseas on your family.
• Your ability to address considerable losses which a child may have experienced.
• The need to address issues surrounding your own infertility - having an ability to acknowledge and deal with your own personal issues of anger, grief, guilt and sadness.
• The relationship with an adopted child can be very challenging for adoptive parents who are sensitive about their own infertility. Unresolved feelings around infertility can affect a person's ability to accept and form a healthy relationship with an adopted child, and acknowledge that the adopted child has a permanent link to another family.

Each prospective adoptive parent must make up their own mind about these issues and it is important that you are honest about how these issues will affect you.

The interests of the child requiring adoption in Australia will be of paramount importance in finding a family for them, and the child's wellbeing must be your priority. How effectively you are able to meet a child's needs in such complex circumstances will be assessed during the adoption process.

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Last updated

19 October 2007