Abstract
This article considers adoption from the perspective of parents, especially the strategies that they employ to enhance attachments and build positive parent-child relationships. The article draws particularly on recent New Zealand research regarding intercountry adoptive parenting, as well as overseas literature on good adoptive parenting practice generally in domestic and intercountry adoption. It also considers the research on methods of supporting parents who adopt and whether there are gaps in legislation, policy or practice in New Zealand that could be closed by borrowing from good examples in the literature, and, or current practice examples. The author is an adoptive parent of Russian-born children and is actively involved in adoptive parent support networks.
Highlights
There are two main pathways for people wishing to adopt in New Zealand
They can try to adopt a baby or infant domestically when a child has been placed for adoption by the birth parents under the Adoption Act 1955, or they can attempt to adopt from several overseas countries under the Adoption (Intercountry) Act 2007, and parts of the Adoption Act 1955
Most people in New Zealand have adopted from Russia, and since 1992 over 670 Russian-born children have been adopted by New Zealanders (ICANZ, 2010)
Summary
Anita moved to Dunedin in 1999 from the UK where she had been a probation officer. Since she has researched, taught and published extensively in areas as varying as home detention, social work research methods, community treatment orders and more recently intercountry adoption.
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