Adoption in the United States

Adoption is permanently placing a person under the age of 18 with a parent or parents other than the birth parents in the United States.

Adoptions in the United States may be either domestic or from another country. Domestic adoptions can be arranged either through a state agency, an adoption agency, or independently.

Adoption agencies must be licensed by the state in which they operate. The U.S. government maintains a website, Child Welfare Information Gateway, which lists each state's licensed agencies. There are both private and public adoption agencies. Private adoption agencies often focus on infant adoptions, while public adoption agencies typically help find homes for waiting children, many of them presently in foster care and in need of a permanent loving home. To assist in the adoption of waiting children, there is a U.S. government-affiliated website, AdoptUSKids.org, assisting in sharing information about these children with potential adoptive parents. The North American Council on Adoptable Children provides information on financial assistance to adoptive parents (called adoption subsidies) when adopting a child with special needs.

Independent adoptions are usually arranged by attorneys and typically involve newborn children. Approximately 55% of all U.S. newborn adoptions are completed via independent adoption.

The 2000 census was the first census in which adoption statistics were collected. The estimated number of children adopted in the year 2000 was slightly over 128,000, bringing the total U.S. population of adopted children to 2,058,915. In 2008 the number of children adopted increased to nearly 136,000.

The United States foster care system enables adults to care for minor children who are not able to live with their biological parents. In fiscal year 2000, 150,703 foster children were adopted in the United States, many by their foster parents or relatives of their biological parents. The enactment of the Adoption and Safe Families Act in 1997 has approximately doubled the number of children adopted from foster care in the United States. If a child in the U.S. governmental foster care system is not adopted or returned to the custody of their birth parents by the age of 18 years, they are aged out of the system on their 18th birthday. To help encourage the adoption of children presently in foster care, adoption exchanges were created, so the county adoption agencies around the country could have central data base to help waiting children find homes. This allows prospective adoptive parents to not only see children waiting for adoption in their own region, but throughout the nation. The central adoption exchange is adoptuskids.org, created through a grant of the Children's Bureau, U.S. Office of Administration of Children and Families.

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