Understanding The Lack of State Collaboration

Decentralization of adoption practices hurts the integrity of the larger system. One central detriment to the larger adoption system stems from the perpetual gray area that questions the ability for same-sex couples to adopt.

Each State maintains a separate adoption system governed by a unique set of laws and guidelines. When an individual from one State finds a child they wish to adopt in another State, no governmental procedure exists to ensure the best possibility of securing this match. Rather, its left up to each individual State to decide how to proceed.

Generally what follows is an abomination that hurts the entire adoption system. The State where the family resides maintains no interest in using their resources to help them adopt a child from another State. The State where the child lives usually lacks the authority to conduct these interviews so the petition effectually flutters out without any actual attempt at helping the family or child with adoption.

The only way to fix the current adoption system is to establish Federal guidelines that define interstate adoption practices and a central adoption policy. The supposed focus of foster care, finding families to adopt children, remains clouded by a system predicated on dollars and cents without any central governance.

Until Federal guidelines choose to address the ability for same-sex couples to adopt, willing families and needy children continue to be neglected by a system more concerned with philosophy than results. States operating separate adoption systems place them in direct competition for dwindling resources rather than jointly driven to free undue children from the stresses of the foster care system.

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