ABSTRACT
Tragedies in adoptive families seem to occur with regularity in the media, and often shed light on the failures of the current system to protect children adequately and to support adoptive families in crisis. As in other placements with tragic outcomes, the recent case of Artyem Savelyev, a seven year-old adopted boy sent back to his home country of Russia by his adoptive mother with a note stating, “I no longer wish to parent this child” (Williams, 2010), seemed to expose a string of problems within intercountry adoption practice (Rotabi and Heine, 2010). While many of the facts of this case are sealed under agency confidentiality regulations, the adoptive mother’s public abandonment of the child in another country raises many questions (Rotabi, 2010a): How well did the agency prepare this mother to adopt a special needs child? How accurate was the information provided by Russian authorities about the child’s needs? Why were no post-placement supports available to this family to help stave off such a crisis?
