Mismatch of expectations leads to traumatic parting with parents; Centre launches remedial plan.
Nine-year old Arun (name changed) was returned by three families between 2015 and 2019 after he spent varying periods — four months to nearly two years — with them as either their adopted son or soon-to-be adopted son. Now, the government’s apex adoption body has stopped any further attempts at placing him with a family so he can be counselled and healed of the trauma caused by multiple rejections.
The Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) has recorded 246 instances of disruption over a period of five years between 2014-15 and 2018-19, which translates into six in 400 children being returned at an advanced stage of adoption. On an average there are 4,000 legal adoptions annually within and from India, as per official data. With the number of such cases showing a recent increase, CARA has begun a nationwide capacity building programme for social workers who help assess the suitability of the adoptive family and prepare a child for a new home.
CARA’s CEO, Lt. Col. Deepak Kumar, says, “This is not a happy situation. Children returning to the institution after being placed with a family face rejection and are scarred for a long time. In order to check this trend we formed a sub-committee of experts last year who travelled to different States to help us build capacity among social workers. A media report cited that there were 1,100 disruptions over the last five years, which is incorrect, as the correct figure is 246. We need to understand the difference between parents withdrawing from the adoption process for various reasons after accepting the profile of a child, and those who return the child after taking them in pre-adoption foster care, which is called disruption. While the former is about helping parents take an informed decision on adoption, the latter is completely detrimental to the best interests of the child.”
He adds that there have also been 10 dissolutions since 2015 when CARA underwent a massive reform. In such cases, parents return the child after they have received the adoption order from a court, which can take a year, if not more.
