ABSTRACT
Domestic adoption is a recent entrant in the services landscape of alternative care in Ethiopia. As a care option, its growth and development have not been well studied. This chapter, however, discusses, from a practical perspective, how an initiative by Bethany Global, an international child welfare organization, led the way for the emergence of a care option that allows children to be raised within families domestically rather than in orphanages. The chapter highlights key features of program development in contexts where there are conducive legal and policy environments, but a lack of strong infrastructure and systems for practical implementation. It points out some of the disconnect between policy and practice and how service providers fill the gap through their expertise and resources. As a case example, this chapter describes Bethany Global’s program implementation model and the ways that it informs innovation in alternative care in contexts where the infrastructure to support implementation has not been sufficiently built.
