Fostering adoption

A new report highlights the need for adoptive families in Canada

Ottawa - Today the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada is releasing Fostering adoption: Exploring adoption and long-term foster care research.

This nuanced report identifies that while both long-term foster care and adoptive parents make a tremendous contribution to children, the long-term stability provided by adoption leads to better outcomes for children.

While the research shows the benefits of stability for children, there is also a need for further data to make hard conclusions. “Good policy decisions require good, accessibile data,” says the report’s author, IMFC Senior Researcher Peter Jon Mitchell. “Without better information, it is difficult to assess challenges and measure the impact of policy.”

Currently an estimated 30,000 children are waiting to be adopted in Canada and it is estimated that only eight per cent of waiting children are adopted annually.

The paper explores international research in the areas of child attachment and belonging, a sense of security and educational attainment.

Recommendations include

• Creating a central foster care and adoption data collection system, similar to the Adoption and Foster Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) in the United States. This would help assist in targeted policymaking and evaluation of services.
• Government agencies should be encouraged to continue working with stakeholders in the adoption community who can recruit and connect potential adoptive and foster parents with  appropriate government departments and provide ongoing support.

Fostering adoption: Exploring adoption and long-term foster care research can be read in full, here.

For additional information or comment, please contact: Peter Jon Mitchell at 613-565-3832