"Adopting and Advocating for the Special Needs Child" bridges the gap between the desire to help a waiting child and the reality of America's special needs adoption system. It is designed to be used by adoption professionals and adoptive parents, to help them get started, keep going, and locate whatever additional information and support they need. The authors are adoption professionals, long-time support volunteers, child advocates, and mothers of a total of 21 children, 13 of them adopted children with special needs.

Tens of thousands of children in the United States alone are waiting...

Today in the United States there is a lack of consensus about what constitutes ethical practice in adoption. Although ethics in adoption is a hot topic, adoption specialists and professionals are unsure about how to serve the best interests of children who need to be adopted and how birth parents, adoptive parents, and adult adoptees ought to be served. This failure to identify and prioritize ethical standards in adoption has resulted in a lack of ethical decision-making and inadequate--and sometimes fraudulent--treatment of those seeking adoption-related services.

Destined to be...