Minister Crevits reforms intercountry adoption in Flanders

Flemish Minister of Welfare, Public Health and the Family Hilde Crevits is having the adoption landscape and the legal framework surrounding it reformed. This is done after previous recommendations from an expert panel and extensive consultation with all those involved. In the future, stricter supervision will be exercised to ensure that adoptions take place in the interests of the child. For example, there will be a systematic screening of countries of origin and independent experts will also assess adoption processes. It will also no longer be possible to adopt a child without guidance from the adoption service. And prospective parents for adoption and foster care will be better informed about the two options in the future.

“I absolutely believe in a future for intercountry adoption in Flanders, but only with a philosophy in which the interests of the child are absolutely central.  We have worked very hard in recent years with all partners on the necessary changes . Adoption should primarily be a search for a suitable family for a child and not the other way around. We therefore build in extra guarantees that adoptions are carried out correctly and morally. Good guidance is essential. It should not be about more-more-more adoption, but about better-better-better. We also connect adoption and foster care more strongly. In foster care we see many children waiting for foster parents, while in adoption we see just as manyseeing parents waiting for a child. That is why we would like to introduce all people who would like to care for a child to the two options. Ultimately, they can then make their own well-informed choice. In this way we hope to give more children a warm home.” – Flemish Minister of Welfare and Health Hilde Crevits  

To ensure that the interests of the child are absolutely paramount in intercountry adoption and to further eliminate the risk of malpractice, Flemish Minister of Health and Family Hilde Crevits has the Flemish regulations on adoption amended. The reform is based on the recommendations of an expert panel who provided several recommendations on intercountry adoption in mid-2021 and which various working groups started working on in concrete terms. A new screening instrument is already being implemented. The working groups included experienced experts and partners from the adoption sector, as well as adopted people and adoptive parents themselves.

Closer supervision of cooperation with countries of origin

In order to more effectively exclude the risk of malpractice and to carry out intercountry adoption in Flanders in a high-quality manner, the systematic screening of countries of origin will be enshrined in law as a principle and some assignments of the authorities involved will be changed.

From now on, only the Flemish Center for Adoption (VCA) will be responsible for the start-up and follow-up of collaborations with countries of origin, after a thorough screening has been carried out. Maximum work will be done from government to government and the role of individual contact persons or, for example, individual orphanages in other countries will be kept to a minimum. In this way, the policy must avoid actively looking for 'adoptable' children in the countries of origin for financial considerations.

Flanders will visit the countries that are eligible for new cooperation to arrive at clear agreements. During such a restart or start-up, it is very well explained how Flanders works, which candidate parents Flanders has, which child profiles, and so on.

The mission of the adoption service will only focus on the guidance and care of everyone involved in an adoption process, such as organizing information sessions, providing psychosocial guidance, advice during the process, providing home visits, return days, etc. Due to the change in task package the financing of the adoption service will no longer depend on the number of channels opened. In this way, Minister Crevits wants to avoid the focus on finding new collaborations, but rather on care and guidance and finding a suitable home for the children.

Independent experts are watching

To increase transparency, there will also be an external advisory committee of experts who will monitor the progress and assessment of files on a case-by-case basis. In the event of a matching, the advice of the advisory committee will be requested.

Mandatory guidance: the possibility of independent adoption disappears

In the future, independent adoptions ( adoptions without guidance from an adoption service ) will no longer be possible. Minister Crevits states that all adoptions must take place under the supervision of the recognized adoption service, so that the necessary care and follow-up can be provided.

Joint process for foster care and adoption

In addition, Minister Crevits wants to inform and sensitize waiting candidate adopters more actively and better about the large group of children in Flanders who need a family. In the future, families who are candidates for foster care and adoption will have to complete a joint preliminary process so that they can make a well-informed choice. The measure should ensure that more children from their own country can grow up in a family context. Today, about a thousand children are looking for a foster family.

The new decree also provides, at the explicit request of adoptees, for a perpetual retention period of their file, so that future generations can still look up their roots, and in the context of scientific research.

Last year, 28 children came from abroad to families in Flanders or Brussels through adoption.