Adoption Fundamentals

If you are considering adopting a child from another country, you might like to familiarise yourself with the intercountry adoption processes. Adopting a child from another country can have many rewards. However, the process can also be an extensive, financially testing and emotional experience.

Who are the children in need of families?

Every child is different and is in need of a family for differing reasons. The child may have been orphaned, abandoned or relinquished by their birth family and may have been old enough to remember this process. The child’s birth relatives, including birth parents, may be alive and the child may have other siblings in their country of origin. In the period before the adoption they may have lived with their birth parents or relatives, with a foster family or in an orphanage.

While there are some healthy younger children and infants in need of families, Australia’s partner countries generally have more applications than needed from prospective adoptive parents willing to parent these children. Many countries of origin have tightened eligibility criteria, reduced intercountry adoption quotas, and placed moratoriums on intercountry adoption as a whole or on the adoption of healthy infants or younger children.

Many children needing families are older, in sibling groups and/or have complex medical and/or behavioural backgrounds. In some ways, all children adopted from overseas have special needs as they have language, cultural and other ethnic differences from their new families. However, many children have health problems ranging from minor and correctable to complex and requiring ongoing treatment or management; mild to severe developmental delay; problematic family or social history (including abuse), and/or physical and intellectual disability. Often it is these children who are in need of families through intercountry adoption as there are too few potential adoptive parents who are willing and suitable to parent these children.

Risks of intercountry adoption

If you’re considering intercountry adoption, bear in mind that in addition to the many positive aspects of adopting a child from overseas, there are also some inherent risks associated with intercountry adoption, including:

there is no guarantee that, at the end of the application process, you will adopt a child
intercountry adoption programs may change how they operate
you may not always get complete or accurate information about the child's background from authorities in their country
the application process time is unpredictable and prone to delays, and
parenting a child from another country can be extremely challenging.

These risks are explored in more detail in our Information Statement on the Realities of Intercountry Adoption, which is intended to provide people considering adopting a child from overseas with information about the realities associated with intercountry adoption, and help them make informed decisions about bringing a child into their family in this way.