The adoption process: a family adjustment programme

Abstract

Adoption is not a new fact over the world, but the recent and intense growth during the last years is a new trend, with new problems and new ways to confront them. The emotional and cognitive processes developed either by the parents as well as by the child, together with the education system into the family will have a strong effect on the adaptation of the family members to the new situation. We have carried out an empirical study in the Valencian Region in Spain showing that there are some risk factors that will have an impact in the family conflicts during the  post-adoption period. The child age, the possibility of adopting several children from the same family, the existence of previous children in the family, and the child story prior to the adoption are the factors more related to the development of adjustment problems and the risk of abandoning the adoption process.

From these results we have started a programme to give support and assistance to the families from the first beginning of the process when they apply to adopt a child to the end of the first two years after the adoption. The first results from this  programme shown that there are a need of training and continue assistance to the parents during the process, as well as the need of  stimulate and focus on specific areas that will have an effect on the future development of the minor.