News Releases

The National Adoption Center is appalled that our government, built on the values of freedom and family, would wrest young children from the arms of their parents, creating a lifelong nightmare for all. We are concerned about the short-term effects (bewilderment, crying, sleeplessness, refusal to eat, to name a few) and the long-term fallout that these children will experience.

In more than four decades, we have seen that even for children who must be separated from their parents because of abuse, neglect and safety concerns, trauma follows them through life, resulting, for many, inability to trust, to form meaningful relationships and become fully-functioning, productive adults. The American Academy of Pediatrics has written: “Toxic stress in young children can lead to less outwardly visible yet permanent changes in brain structure and function…and (result in) functional differences in learning, memory and aspects of executive functioning.” It is unacceptable that instead of protecting children and families from the violence they are fleeing, this country is doing them irrevocable harm.

The National Adoption Center was founded on the premise that every child deserves to grow up in a loving and secure family. We know, based on research and our own experience, that children without nurturing families face a lifetime of adversity.

We must continue to be vigilant that this cruel, abusive practice ends and that the thousands of children who have already been separated be given appropriate treatment and returned promptly to their parents.

National Adoption Center
1500 Walnut Street, Suite #701
Philadelphia, PA 19102

Black Lives Matter: African-American Adoption Champions Needed

Philadelphia, Pa: 26% of children in U.S. foster care are African-American, double the percentage of African-American children in the U.S. population. The National Adoption Center (NAC) is working with other leaders in child welfare to help create solutions to these issues. We are convening a meeting of academic, spiritual, governmental and community organizers and leaders to understand the racial inequality in the child welfare system and then to develop a national strategy to address this issue.

“While national attention has waned over the years, and the numbers of children in care goes up and down, racial disproportionality and disparity in services remains constant for African American children in foster care and for those in child welfare systems throughout the nation who are in need of permanent adoptive families” states Toni Oliver, MSW, President National Association of Black Social Workers. Likewise, Frank Perfinski, Adoption Program Manager Delaware Department of Health and Social Services, shares “every child deserves to be a part of a forever family. Currently in Delaware, there are 82 children in foster care needing permanency and 63% of those children are African American.”

NAC working with Dr. Charles Williams, NAC Board member and Director of the Graduate School, University City, Lincoln University, is bringing together a working group to address the disproportional representation of African American children in the child welfare system and the lack of adoptive parents of color. Dr. Williams grew up in foster care and was never adopted, thus he is passionate about the need for fewer children to grow up as he did without a permanent family.

About National Adoption Center: The National Adoption Center is a nonprofit based in Philadelphia. Founded over 42 years ago, the National Adoption Center expands adoption opportunities for children living in foster care throughout the United States and is a resource to families and agencies that seek the permanency of caring homes for children and since 1972 has created families for 23,000 children.

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In March, 2014, the American Academy of Pediatrics endorsed the Center’s policy on open adoption.  The policy reads:

The National Adoption Center believes that it is an inalienable right of all citizens, including adopted adults, to have unencumbered access to their original birth certificates. In keeping with this position, we believe that copies of both the original and the amended birth certificate should be given to the adoptive family at the time of finalization unless specifically denied by the birthparents. In any case, the National Adoption Center advocates that the adoptee, at age 18, be granted access to his/her original birth certificate.

The National Adoption Center also supports an adult adoptee's unencumbered access to all medical and historical records.* These records should be given to adopting families prior to finalization.

*Historical records refer to that information acquired about the child before coming into his/her final adoption placement. Such information includes, but is not limited to, foster care placements, childhood photos, information about siblings, number of moves before adoption, reason for entering foster care, details of school history and related school documents and any early history of development which may include pertinent medical records. 

The endorsement will appear on the Academy’s website beginning June 15.