Screening and selection of prospective adoptive parents: Theory, practice and policy.

Adoption practice in both the Netherlands and Belgium is fairly limited to intercountry adoption. Domestic adoptions are rare. Therefore all preparation, screening and selection of prospective adopters is aimed at parenting a child from abroad. Children that enter both Belgium and the Netherlands were born in far away countries like for instance China, Ethiopia, South Africa, Colombia and Kazakhstan. Meta-analytic research on intercountry adoption shows good outcomes on the long run, however, it is commonly agreed upon that intercountry adopted children are vulnerable children at a significant risk for a number of cognitive, social, emotional, and educational problems (Juffer & Van IJzendoorn, 2005; Keyes, Sharma, Elkins, Iacono, & McGue 2008; Van IJzendoorn & Juffer, 2006; Vinnerljung, Hjern & Lindblad, 2006; Wierzbicki, 1993). Good outcomes are for a good deal attributed to parenting skills and additional support during placement. Adoptive children need strong, sensitive parents. It is very important to identify those parents early on in order to optimize chances for good adoption outcomes and prevent adoption disruptions. This becomes more and more important since the children entering both Belgium and the Netherlands do have more and more complex needs. Up to 70% of all Dutch placements are considered special needs, consisting of medical and psychosocial conditions that need extra attention from the start of the placement (source: Dutch Ministry of Safety and Justice). However, the different parties involved are dissatisfied with the existing procedures for screening and selection. Prospective adopters consider it as too subjective and their report as insufficiently representative. The professionals are frustrated because their expertise is not sufficiently recognized.Thus the change in practice as well as the research evidence, makes the tasks of screening and selecting prospective adopters early on in the procedure next to very important also very difficult. Since 1992 research has been done on this topic, which resulted in a framework by Vinke (1999) that was used both in the Netherlands and Belgium for a decade, and recently updated to a strictly evidence based framework by Stroobants (2011). This evidence based framework will be introduced in a presentation by Stroobants. Next to that presentation Vinke will go into the policy and practice of assessment and screening in the Netherlands, by introducing a checklist based on earlier research as well as Stroobants' work.