What % of adoptions stem from an abusive home situation?

Question

People seem to be answering questions from the view of different adoption situtaions. I wonder which situations are the most common. There are at least 4 reasons for placement that I can think of:

1) Parent(s) does not want to raise child at this time due to finances or their stage in life

2) Parent(s) feel they or others may abuse child if kept

3) State removes the child from parent(s)

4) Child is an orphan

Does anyone have HARD statistics that show which of these situations is the dominant case?

Thanks.

P.S. If there are no numbers, I suggest people preface their answers on this board. These situations call for radically different solutions.

Answer 1

I know this doesn't answer all of this important question, but it does discuss on the number of foster children with parents whose rights had been terminated.

There are a number of statistics from fiscal year 2000 given on the CasaNet Website in their Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System report.

http://www.casanet.org/library/foster-ca...

One of the statistics shows that of the 556,000 children in foster care that year, the number whose parents had their parental rights terminated was 75,000.

Of the children in foster care for that year, these are the outcomes:

Reunification with Parent(s) or Primary Caretaker(s)  57%  157,712

Living with Other Relative(s) 10% 26,291

Adoption 17% 46,581

Emancipation 7% 19,895

Guardianship 4% 10,341

Transfer to Another Agency 3% 7,726

Runaway 2% 5,865

Death of Child 0% 589

There is some very interesting information in this report regarding age, race, length of stay in foster care and more.

EDIT:

I was adopted about 40 years ago.  My aparents were told it was because of abuse.  When I received my non-id 30 years ago from the adoption agency that handled my case , the social worker who looked in my records to get my information said she had no idea why they were told that, as it wasn't true.  Hmmmmm.  I think agencies probably used to tell this to prospective adoptive parents whether it was true or not in many cases.  I was a couple of years old and had been hanging out in foster care for 7 months.  I think it was said to make my aparents feel sorry for me, and more likely to take me even though I wasn't a baby.

Answer 2

Of the approximately 130,000 adoptions by Americans per year,

about about 14,000 are of infants by non-family members, about 20,0000 are

of children from abroad (many, if not most, from orphanages), about 40,000

to 50,000 from foster care, and the remainder by stepparents, grandparents

and other family members.

This is from Adam Pertman, The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute

Answer 3

Wow, great question and some good answers (with the exception of the one that says "pretend the child was born to you!!!??? - yikes)

I find it amazing that you have so few answers to this question, because the general consensus in the adoption section that I have read, is that if children stayed with their natural families they would be abused!!!! (to be clear, this is what I have read here over and over - it is NOT my opinion)

So where ARE all the answers from those folks who seem to believe that all children up for adoption come from abusive (not to forget drug-addicted) homes, huh?

Forgive me, feeling cranky today

Answer 4

In the interest of the child, does it matter why the child needs placement?? Are we in search of a "designer" child? Love is what is needed nothing else, pretend the child was born to you with whatever gifts and problems it has. And just love them.

Answer 5

I adopted my girls 20 years ago and at that time we were given all of those stats.  I'm sure they are different now.  I couldn't possibly remember actual numbers.  I do know that the children removed from their parents due to abuse and negligence far outweighed any other situation.  I assume it is the same today from the constant search for foster parents.

Answer 6

I don't believe you'll actually a specific percentage number on here. Unless there is someone here that works for an agency who has access to that info.