ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author provides a rationale for why interventions and policy shifts are necessary and where changes must focus. She discusses the basic assumptions and activities of traditional and Adopter models for handling adoptions. The traditional model operates around the processes of supply and demand and involves three actions. On the supply side are babies and young infants who need permanent families. In order to achieve important, structural, and long-term changes in adoption policies and practices, so-called “personal” problems must become politicized as “public” issues. Policy and practice changes must insure that the adoption process, both domestic and international, becomes less arbitrary and less discriminatory regarding who gets to adopt and what kind of child/children s/he/they are offered. The process itself must become more open and more egalitarian. As it stands now, the adoption process has significant power inequities.
