Beyond a two-tier service? Preparation and assessment in intercountry adoption in the UK

Abstract

Intercountry adoption (ICA) in the UK has historically been a small-scale practice, ‘tolerated’ at best, virtually unregulated and arguably privatised in nature. With the primary purpose of enabling the ratification of the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption, the Adoption (Intercountry Aspects) Act 1999 also aimed to place ICA on equal footing with domestic adoption by applying to it the adoption procedures and services prescribed by the Adoption and Children Act 2002 and its subsequent regulations. Taking into consideration factors such as the over-burdened national care system, inadequate policy provisions, tensions between ideological support for and opposition to intercountry adoption, and the well-established national ICA support community, this article addresses the extent to which this objective has been achieved through an examination of agency practices and intercountry adoptive parents’ experiences of preparation and assessment. The findings of this study indicate that a ‘two-tier service’ persists and ICA has been preserved as a small-scale, semi-private practice.