Changing nature of adoption and need for post-adoption services: Intercountry adoption practice in Taiwan and Australia

Intercountry adoption from Taiwan to Australia: Historical context and process

The global practice of intercountry adoption grew out of orphan-rescue efforts at the end of World War II, with children from war-affected countries in Europe and Japan sent to other European countries and the United States (Young, 2012b). Intercountry adoption from Taiwan also originated from this background. After World War II, Taiwan was provided with goods by the United States as humanitarian aid. Many religion-based organizations, most as branches of US non-governmental organizations, were founded in Taiwan during the 1950s and 1960s. Along with changes in Taiwan society, induced abortions among unwed women and teenagers increased. With a strong belief against abortion, these American non-governmental organizations started their mission to help affected women complete their pregnancies and send their newborns for intercountry adoption, as most mothers wanted to keep their pregnancies secret. This was an early era for agencies providing intercountry adoption services in Taiwan (Lai and Yang, 2012).

Prior to child welfare reforms starting in mid-1980s, adoptions in Taiwan were often associated with secrecy or even human trafficking. Intercountry adoption was a solution for mothers of unplanned children, and most of them believed that their children would have a better future after adoption. Following a period of Taiwan’s economic growth and decreased birth rate, legislative child welfare reforms were implemented between 1985 and 2012. These reforms have brought Taiwan’s adoption practice into alignment with the Hague Convention, including concepts of ‘the best interests of the child’ and ‘open adoption’. The Protection of Children and Youth Welfare and Rights Act of 2012 regulates that incorporated agencies must be approved by the government in order to place children for adoption. Nine organizations are currently authorized to offer domestic adoption services, and six of these are also accredited to practice intercountry adoptions.

Intercountry adoption to Australia emerged in the late 1960s, and grew as a proportion of overall adoptions over the subsequent decades as domestic adoptions declined. From the 1970s onwards, greater access to family services and changes in public attitudes toward unwed mothers led to fewer domestic adoptions. In 1998 Australia ratified the Hague Convention, which requires intercountry adoptions to be managed through approved Central Authorities, which are state or territory government intercountry adoption programs, providing information and support for families wanting to adopt a child from overseas (Hilferty and Katz, 2016). After peaking in 2004–2005 at 434, the overall number of intercountry adoptions in Australia has steadily declined over the past 25 years in parallel with global trends (Selman, 2012). In the most recent years (2018–2019), 57 intercountry adoptions were recorded for the 14th consecutive year of decline (AIHW, 2019).

Because Taiwan is not a signatory to the Hague Convention, a bilateral agreement between Australia and Taiwan governs the adoption process. Australian Citizenship Amendment (Intercountry Adoption) Bill 2014 and changes to the Family Law (Bilateral Arrangements – Intercountry Adoption) Regulations 1998 allow recognition of adoptions made in Taiwan. In Australia, adoptions are governed by legislation at the state or territory level (Australian Government Department of Social Services [AGDSS], 2019b). There are provisions in Australian adoption legislation to recognize valid adoptions of children made by overseas authorities for residents within their states and territories. The current legal process of intercountry adoption from Taiwan to Australia involves multiple steps and is time-consuming. In 2018–2019, the median time for a family in Australia to complete an intercountry adoption was 2 years and 1 month, while the median length of time for adoptions from Taiwan was even longer at 3 years and 8 months (AIHW, 2019). The long time between application approval and child placement finalization implies the stringent adoption process required by the Taiwanese government. Prior to application approval, prospective adoptive parents in Australia have to complete training and assessment of eligibility before being approved to adopt a child (AIHW, 2019).

On the Taiwan side, domestic adoption-matching attempts must be exhausted before intercountry adoption can proceed (Lai, 2016; Permit and Management Regulations for Children and Youth Adoption Service Providers, 2015; The Protection of Children and Youth Welfare and Rights Act, 2020). That is, adoption agencies must first make efforts and assessments to match the child with a Taiwanese prospective adoptive family. If there are no appropriate matches, adoption agencies can then turn to intercountry adoption. This process follows the ‘domestic adoption comes first’ principle of the Hague Convention. Barriers to matched domestic adoptions in Taiwan have not been widely examined, but the assessments and matching decisions are often based on adoptive parents’ desire for specific characteristics of the child (e.g. healthy, specific gender, newborns), birth parents’ requests about the adoptive family, the observed interactions between the prospective adoptive parents and the adoptee, and adequate support in caring for children with special needs.

Once an intercountry adoption has been approved, practitioners put effort into preparing the birth family and the child for the transition, which is more difficult in intercountry adoption. For example, adoption professionals in Taiwan have to comfort the child and reaffirm the mother’s love when the child feels insecure. They also prepare meaningful materials (e.g. life-story books, countdown calendars, memory albums) and arrange Skype meetings with the adoptive parents to help the child understand the incoming changes involving a new home, culture, and language (Child and Juvenile Adoption Information Center, n.d.).

To complete the adoption, the foreign adoptive parents must come to Taiwan, where they will spend time with the child and complete the required court proceedings. In addition, there is a ‘trial period’ regulation in the Taiwanese adoption policy for all domestic adoptions, where arrangements are made for the child to live with the prospective adoptive parents for at least 3 months and adoption professionals will observe their relationship development to issue a report. And some judges will ask foreign adoptive parents to conduct the same trial period for a shorter time (e.g. a couple of weeks). After the legal decision has been finalized, Taiwan adoption organizations usually will arrange farewell meetings for the adoption triad: adopted children, birth parents, and adoptive parents. It may be the first or only time the adoption triad meet together. With such effort, the separation is meaningful for every participant (Wright et al., 2020).

After the adoption, Australian intercountry adoption programs will follow up with the adoptive family to assess the child’s well-being and the family’s need for support. They will send post-placement reports to the child’s country of origin for a minimum of 12 months (Permit and Management Regulations for Children and Youth Adoption Service Providers, 2015). Depending on the adoption agency, this information may be made available to the birth family. Taiwanese adoption agencies are required to maintain contact with birth families for 3 years following the adoption. Although most accredited adoption agencies are not funded by the government, they voluntarily offer follow-up services for birth families, and assist with future connections (Child and Juvenile Adoption Information Center, n.d.). For both countries, most work is done before adoption. Post-adoption support is provided, but quite limited due to resource constraints and limited requirements for service provision.

Intercountry adoption in global context

Globally, reasons for intercountry adoptions vary, including effects of poverty, wars, natural disasters, political conflicts, and gender inequality. The post-World War II pattern represented asymmetrical power relations between sending countries, which tended to be poorer, and receiving countries, which were developed and richer (Högbacka, 2014; Howell, 2006). This phenomenon was related to the humanitarian response for rescuing war-affected children. There were more children put up for intercountry adoption because of low socio-economic rights in sending countries (Davies, 2011; Willing et al., 2012). Intercountry adoptions have thus been criticized as a form of neo-imperialism or neo-colonialism. That is, children in countries with poor economic situations may be treated as commodities, then adoptions become an economic aid for the poor family or country. Especially when there was a lack of transparency in the adoption process, adoption could be a form of trafficking and exploitation of children transnationally (Breuning, 2013; Walton, 2012). Adopted children were forced to become citizens of another country and without the chance to reconnect to their origin. This form of child placement could have become a colonial method of cultural imperialism.

Furthermore, after the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the Hague Convention were put into practice, intercountry adoptions became a form of children’s rights practice, including providing special protection relevant to adoption for children whose families fail to meet their needs and considering the parents’ free consent to the adoption (Davies, 2011). In addition, gender inequality still exists in some Asian countries, such as China and India, so that boys are preferred, and girls are more likely to be relinquished for intercountry adoptions (Csete and Willis, 2010). However, there has been a growing critique on intercountry adoption, since it might function as a marketplace – supplying children from the Global South to infertile couples in Western countries (Breuning, 2013; Willing et al., 2012; Young, 2012a). Criticists argue that intercountry adoption becomes a legal way of trafficking and not an equal exchange of children and families between receiving and sending countries (Hübinette, 2004). The intercountry adoption practice also becomes a way to find a child for White couples from western countries but not to find a warm and loving family for the child in need. Adoption matching services thus are sometimes criticized as putting vulnerable children on a market for White couples to select.

In recent years, intercountry adoption practice has changed significantly due to the decline in numbers globally (Selman, 2012). Reasons for this pattern include sending countries’ declining mortality rates, rising living standards, and policy support for domestic adoption (Hilferty and Katz, 2016; Mignot, 2015; Selman, 2012). This overall decline is reflective of the Hague Convention, which stipulates that intercountry adoption should only occur in the child’s best interest and where other forms of permanent family care in the country have been exhausted (AIHW, 2019). Moreover, the profiles of children who are being adopted also changed: children being placed in intercountry adoption tend to be older, in sibling groups, and have complex special needs in the form of physical or intellectual disabilities (The Hague Conference on Private International Law [HCPIL], 2018).

Similar to the global trend, the practice of adoption (domestic and intercountry) in Taiwan has changed. Taiwan, as a sending country, has become a developed country. Unwed mothers and low-income families have more options and services with improved social welfare policies. Yet the number of intercountry adoptions has been higher than domestic adoptions in recent years (SFAAMHW, 2018). This is because reasons for intercountry adoptions have changed from economic hardship to child protection, such as severe maltreatment or neglect due to substance use. To warrant the best interests of the children for adoption, in Taiwan, prospective adoptive parents are not allowed to ‘choose’ desirable children; however, they can list some ‘criteria’ for not adopting. As a result, children who are older, physically or mentally impaired, or whose birth parents are involved with complex issues, such as substance use, usually become ‘undesirable’ children for domestic adoption. These children can then be matched for intercountry adoption (SFAAMHW, 2018).

Intercountry adoption is now expected to be tied to the principles of children’s rights and best interests. But concerns are raised that adoptions related to protection are still on the basis of ‘rescue’ (Cantwell, 2014; Davies, 2011): rescuing a child from one family/country to another. The notion of rescue, however, may not consider the interests of adopted children beyond their childhood (Walton, 2012) and disregards the rights of other individuals, especially birth parents (Högbacka, 2014; Walton, 2012). The decision for adoption is based on the assumption that the child can have better development in another caring environment. However, research suggests that some adopted children may not be better in their physical and psychological well-being (Mohanty and Newhill, 2006; Pylypa, 2016; Reinoso et al., 2013). For example, a review of literature in the United States indicates that internationally adopted children tend to be at high risk for mental health problems and social maladjustment. These children and adolescents often experience difficulties in racial/ethnic identity development (Mohanty and Newhill, 2006). Reinoso et al. (2013) explored adoptive parents’ and internationally adopted children’s post-adoption experiences in Spain, and they found that though transracial adoptees were likely to identify a strong sense of birth culture, they did perceive high levels of discrimination due to either their minority identity or their adoption status (Reinoso et al., 2013). Viewing adoption as a lifelong process would better meet the interests of adoptees by recognizing that the need for support changes from childhood to adolescence and adulthood, and does not end with the formal approval for adoption.

Furthermore, intercountry adoptions are criticized as resulting in national traumas and harming birth parents and countries of origin (Hübinette, 2004). In particular, birth mothers’ rights are often neglected while they are viewed as just giving ‘birth’ to the child. Intercountry adoptions are considered a result of global gender inequality. The female gender intersecting with associated conditions such as working class and secrecy of out-of-wedlock birth make these ‘birth’ mothers devalued, invisible, and discriminated against (Kim, 2015, 2016; McKee, 2016). These mothers are often compelled to give up their children and described as the ‘socially dead’, especially those who want to keep their child’s birth and adoption a secret (Kim, 2016). Most mothers continuingly face difficulties related to reasons for adoption (Walton, 2012). At the same time, adopted children may be forced to leave their biological roots and have little direct access to their origins due to geographic distance and language barriers. They may experience greater challenges related to identity formation (Kirton, 2000). Thus, regulating post-adoption support for the adoption triad is very important.

Post-adoption support and services

Post-adoption services for adoptees may include reunion/contact with birth families, support for ethnic identity and connection to birth culture, mental health and psychosocial adjustment, and improvement of relationships with adoptive families (Sánchez-Sandoval et al., 2020). For adoptive families, services should be about promoting children’s health and development, strengthening family relationships, fostering children’s identity, managing contact with birth parents and significant others, and providing financial and legal assistance. Studies have found that adoptive families may feel isolated and distressed (Atkinson and Gonet, 2007; Downes et al., 2019), and support groups can be helpful in enhancing parent–child relationships and providing emotional support (Downes et al., 2019). Previous studies have found that for birth families, feelings of loss, anger, guilt, shame, and depression are common (Neil, 2007; Ryburn, 1998) and that generally their feelings and needs are neglected and not addressed appropriately (Neil, 2013). They have also expressed the need to maintain connections with the child in open adoption (Logan, 1999).

Although past literature has identified several post-adoption needs of the adoption triad, services available or specifically developed for them tend to be scarce. In Australia, the Intercountry Adoption Family Support Service was established in 2016 as a nationwide phone counseling and casework support service for intercountry adoptees and their families (AIHW, 2019). An independent evaluation of the service was conducted in 2019, drawing on interviews with key stakeholders including groups representing adoptees and adoptive families. Participants in the evaluation noted that, in addition to offering counseling, support services should be provided around tracing birth relatives, cultural identity, and other practical support. In addition, stakeholders recommended provision of peer support to adoptees and their families, and expansion of training for adoptive parents. In 2020, the Australian Department of Social Services conducted workshops and invited submissions from adoptees, adoptive families, professionals, and academics to inform re-design of the Intercountry Adoption Family Support Service, within its capped annual budget of A $900,000 (about US$570,000) (AGDSS, 2020).

In Taiwan, the Protection of Children and Youth Welfare and Rights Act states that the central authorized agency must keep relevant information on the identity and health documents of birth families, adopters, adopted children, adoption matching service agencies, and other appropriate groups or professionals. The authority must provide them with kin-searching services and may ask the household registration officers or police for assistance, which gives adoption agencies a strong base to provide reunion services. Moreover, different adoption agencies have developed their own post-adoption support, such as support groups, follow-up phone contacts, information exchanging, and reunion services. However, these services are not yet regulated by legislation, and thus are self-funded by adoption organizations and only provided when needed. Each agency has its own regulations on deciding when and how the follow-up support are offered.

It is critical to identify potential gaps in service delivery in intercountry adoption practices by examining current services. Therefore, this study will address the following research question: How do Taiwanese and Australian adoption professionals support post-adoption needs among the adoption triad?

Procedure

Target study participants were practitioners from adoption agencies in Taiwan and Australia. In Taiwan, nine organizations are accredited to provide adoption matching services domestically, and six of them are also accredited to provide intercountry adoption services. These adoption agencies collaborate with organizations from receiving countries such as Australia, Canada, Demark, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Although only three of the six organizations are Australian agencies’ collaborators, this study includes practitioners’ voices from five of the six adoption organizations to gain a general understanding of intercountry adoption services in Taiwan. In Australia, as Central Authorities, each state and territory is responsible for processing intercountry adoption applications and services. Local governments are the main intercountry adoption agencies, collaborating on intercountry adoption programs with sending countries such as Bulgaria, Chile, China, Colombia, Hong Kong, Latvia, the Philippines, Poland, South Africa, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, and Thailand (AGDSS, 2019a).

Data collection was conducted in both countries between April and August 2018, including recruiting participants, scheduling interviews, and conducting focus groups. A purposive sampling recruitment approach was applied in both countries by contacting the adoption agencies first and inviting potential participants. The participants selected in this study were social work-related professionals who have experience in working on intercountry adoptions, including working with birth families, adopted children, and prospective adoptive families.

Following this, focus groups or semi-structured individual interviews were arranged and conducted. Participants were asked to share their perceptions of intercountry and open adoption and strategies for working with birth mothers, adoptive families, and adopted persons on issues of connections and reunions particularly. Specific interview questions included the following domains: (a) the intercountry process; (b) collaborations with adoption agencies overseas; (c) preparations for children and birth families; (d) perceptions of connections, relationships, and reunions; and (e) thoughts about the best practice for intercountry adoption.

Study participants

A total of 29 adoption practitioners (18 in Taiwan and 11 in Australia) participated in this study. The 18 Taiwanese adoption practitioners were from 5 non-governmental adoption agencies and the government-contracted Child and Juvenile Adoption Information Center. Most participants from Taiwan were experienced social workers in child welfare relevant fields (12/18, 67%), of whom many (7/18, 39%) were licensed in social work. Taiwanese adoption practitioners participating in this study worked in accredited adoption agencies. But each agency has their own missions, organizational values, and structures. For example, some agencies provide adoption services due to their religious reason of anti-abortion, so their services will include the assistance of unwed mothers to complete their pregnancy, and then help them place their babies for adoption, while some agencies do so for advocating children’s rights of having a family. Different historical contexts of these agencies may result in different values about domestic and intercountry adoptions, resulting in different practices or assessments when working with children, birth families, and adoptive families. On the Taiwan side, adoption professionals are mainly in charge of the pre-adoption process, including confirming the termination of birth parental rights, preparing children and birth parents for separation, applying for required documents, matching children with prospective adoptive parents, and communicating with other professionals if necessary, such as foster carers and judges.

The 11 Australian adoption professionals were from 3 state/territory governments and 1 support service agency. Participants from Australia reported varying educational and professional backgrounds as social work degrees are not required in their roles; furthermore, there is no licensure process for social workers in Australia. On the Australia side, state/territory adoption professionals work closely with prospective adoptive parents throughout the process, including application, training, and post-adoption follow-up. The following steps are involved in an intercountry adoption in Australia: (1) Initial enquiry; (2) Education sessions and formal application; (3) Adoption assessment and decision about the approval of an application; (4) If approved, documents sent to country of choice and application awaits approval; (5) Placement proposal (the matching of a child with a family) issued by the overseas authority; (6) Immigration application process; (7) Travel to meet the child; (8) Bring the child to Australia; (8) The legal process to become the parent of the child (Intercountry Adoption Australia, n.d.).

Analysis

The research team co-analyzed data collected from Taiwanese and Australian adoption professionals. Using the process described by Braun and Clarke (2012), an inductive approach thematic analysis was conducted to draw on practitioners’ perceptions of post-adoption support and how their work followed the best interests of the child principle. Research team members repeatedly coded, sorted, and identified joint themes, such as ‘balancing best interests and policy constraints’, ‘responding to changing nature of adoption and needs’, and ‘meeting expectations of the parties’. In addition, data from focus groups allowed the research team to analyze shared opinions and pay special attention to interaction within the group (Mishra, 2016). Analyses of focus group data identified consistent opinions about intercountry adoption among different groups, so we paid more attention to differing opinions, such as thoughts about following the best-interests principle.

Post-adoption service needs of birth and adoptive families

Adoption professionals in Taiwan and Australia identify similar post-adoption needs of birth and adoptive families, including for material and emotional support and connection.

Taiwanese adoption professionals stated that after the adoption process is completed, many birth mothers still face the same challenges in life that influenced the adoption placement in the first place. These mothers need material support to address issues such as financial hardship, substance abuse, poor family relationship, or domestic violence. In addition, birth mothers often express complicated feelings of loss, guilt, shame, upset, rejection, and/or isolation. Many experience traumas of separation and unresolved grief and have needs for emotional support. A Taiwanese adoption worker shared that: ‘We have to prepare them [birth parents] and be mindful of their emotions. Some may have a breakdown right after separation and need a companion. We will do so and care for and comfort them’. This kind of support from the adoption agency is intended to promote the well-being of birth mothers and their families.

On the other hand, adoptive parents also need support to ensure the child’s well-being. For one thing, children placed for intercountry adoption are more likely to have special needs, such as developmental delay or disability. Indeed, Australian adoption professionals noted that they describe the intercountry adoption program to prospective adoptive parents as a ‘special needs adoption’ program and spend time at the point of application and training to ensure applicants understand what they are undertaking as prospective adoptive parents. One commented:

We put a lot of emphasis on the beginning . . . making sure we help them really unpack whether this is right for them, whether they have the skills, the capabilities, the right motivations to be here before we get them into the program, hence our focus on pre-entry and intake. Even after education, we do have families who go ‘thank you very much, that was a growth experience for us, but we do realise now that this was not the right pathway for us’, and leave.

But this Australian adoption worker also noted, ‘We have a small but incredible pool of families that have adopted from Taiwan, who have all adopted children with a range of special needs, and many have gone back and subsequently adopted another child’.

For another, adopted children may have issues with adaptation to a completely new environment, which is especially challenging when the child has experienced traumatic events during early childhood. An Australian adoption professional reflected:

If the child has just arrived, there needs to be some allowances for settling and attachment period before they start to attend child care or school . . . They may have previously been living and attending school in an orphanage and are going through the adjustment of being with new carers and loss of previous relationships.

Adoptive parents need to develop their understanding of child development, behavioral and emotional responses to trauma, and preparation for adoption disclosure. Otherwise, they may feel stressed responding to children’s maladaptation, which may be due to differences in culture, language, and family environment.

When it comes to issues related to connection, adoptees, birth mothers, and adoptive parents may have different concerns. The need for agency support is greater when the adoption becomes more open. For example, birth mothers may fall into two groups in terms of their willingness to be contacted after adoption: some birth mothers will be active in maintaining the connection, via information exchanges, to confirm their children are doing well; others would rather cut off the relationship with the child, and even with adoption workers, because they feel bad about giving up their child (Wright et al., 2020). A Taiwanese adoption worker mentioned that:

Basically, we would contact them actively during the first two years [after adoption]. But they usually simply say ‘I got the photos’. ‘I got the report’. That’s it. So later, we would be relatively passive. . . . We just let them know that we will always be there, but try not to disrupt their lives.

In contrast, adoptive parents express stronger needs for connection. Either they may want the child to maintain connections with their original culture or the child may request to know about their heritage at a later developmental stage. According to an Australian adoption worker:

Down the track? Adolescence is a peak time. Families with younger children want to pre-empt that. They think things are good at the moment, [and] don’t want to lose that. [They] want to be prepared for difficult questions, information about the child’s history.

Australian adoptive parents identified the need for guidance on transracial adoption, cultural identity disclosure, and openness. Resources and support for connection are thus critical to addressing adoptees’ needs and rights for knowing and connecting with their origins.

Services are limited and not regulated

In responding to needs identified above, post-adoption services are necessary but remain limited. In Taiwan, there are no legislative requirements for post-adoption support. In Australia, limited post-adoption support is provided by the Australian government-funded Intercountry Adoption Family Support Service, but not by the state and territory governments that process the adoptions. Their adoption services are limited to the matching and legal process and terminate after the adoption is finalized. But both Taiwanese and Australian adoption workers stated that ‘adoption is lifelong’ and that access to services should be too.

In Taiwan, adoption agencies are required to maintain contact with birth families for at least 3 years following the adoption. But post-adoption services are often voluntary, meaning that each adoption agency voluntarily provides services, and birth mothers’ participation in the service is voluntary as well. Adoption workers will offer ongoing support to birth families, including frequent contact, material support, counseling services, and/or birth control education. One adoption agency organizes annual gathering events, inviting birth mothers to share their own adoption stories with peer support. However, our research also indicated that many birth mothers would rather cut off the connection with adoption agencies right after adoption because of the emotional hardship that connection brings (Wright et al., 2020). Social workers must be aware of birth mothers’ immediate needs and be ready for future needs whenever they do want to reconnect. A Taiwanese adoption worker concluded that ‘Adoption is lifelong. Adoption cases are never really closed’.

In Australia, on the other hand, formal support is limited to counseling and casework, and adoptive families often rely more on informal networks. After adoption, state and territory intercountry adoption programs will follow up with the family to assess family needs for support and the child’s adjustment. Adoption workers can play a support role in getting the adoptees settled in, meeting with the school, and talking with adoptive parents about parenting skills. Families are often connected to informal support from other families who have adopted children from the same country. An Australian adoption worker shared that there are some support groups specifically for families with adoptees from Taiwan: ‘they have shared knowledge around culture, keeping connected. We also are getting adult adoptees to connect’. These support groups provide a platform for adoptive families and children to meet others with common experiences and concerns, share knowledge about parenting, engage in Taiwanese cultural practices, and even learn how to communicate with birth families and agencies.

In terms of tracing and reunion, both Taiwanese and Australian adoption workers play a critical mediating role in facilitating connection between birth and adoptive families. For example, adoption professionals in Taiwan and Australia will assist the adoption triad with information exchange. Post-placement reports are often made by adoptive families and sent by Australian state/territory adoption programs to the child’s country of origin for a minimum of 12 months. However, there is no consistent practice related to supporting connection to birth families and culture for intercountry adoption in Australia. An Australian adoption professional commented:

The opportunity to be able to connect with culture, family, language, could be there, if contact can be promoted as early as possible [because] more information is available from Taiwan than other [sending] countries. But we don’t have services to get people to that point, if they have to navigate on their own. A lot would prefer if there was support. Someone who can help them navigate and prepare – for intercountry adoption as a lifetime journey.

Adoption agencies in Taiwan will make the reports available to the birth family to follow up on the child’s adjustment, development, and attachment to the new family. In particular, they practice ethically as a gatekeeper by translating the reports culturally and linguistically in order to protect birth mothers and prevent re-traumatization. Nonetheless, adoption agencies and adoptive families in Australia often receive little feedback from the child’s family of origin, although many Taiwanese professionals do encourage two-way information or photo sharing. This is not due to lack of interest, but because the birth mother would be reminded of the painful adoption decision and subsequent separation. A Taiwanese adoption worker described their hard work with birth mothers:

We do our best to bring them [birth mothers] back to their original life. Especially they would pay more attention to themselves after adoption. They would work very hard to live a normal life. But [they actually] try to suppress their emotions. When we give them some photos or talk about the child, memories are revived again. . . . It is hard for them to just let it go . . . No matter whether the adoptive family contacts us or not, for them [birth mothers], the child is always living in their mind.

Moreover, adoption practices are the result of termination of parental rights. Birth mothers are supposed to relinquish their rights as a parent; thus, this process may also inhibit parents from maintaining connection. In cases when the birth mother is not prepared to look at the reports and letters, many adoption workers store these materials and provide them later, depending on the birth mother’s changing needs for connection and in case the child would like to search for his or her origin someday.

Some adoptive parents or adoptees plan for birth family search and reunion. Currently, there are no policies in Taiwan and Australia regulating children’s minimum age for searching and reuniting with the family of origin. The Australian government provided funding for a free tracing and reunification services for intercountry adoptees for 2 years (July 2016–June 2018); however, this funding was discontinued, and costs for tracing, not including travel to country of origin, average $500 Australian dollars (International Social Service Australia [ISSA], 2019). Most agencies in Taiwan would support post-adoption reunion for children over the age of 12 and/or with adoptive parents’ consent. Taiwanese adoption agencies that offer search and reunion assistance receive no funding to cover these costs. Before the appropriate age, some agencies in Taiwan will arrange heritage tours for adoptees and adoptive families to visit Taiwan and be involved in direct connections with adoption agencies and Taiwanese cultures. Speaking of colleagues in adoption services in Taiwan, an Australian adoption professional recognized that these Taiwanese colleagues are not funded to provide support for reunions but do it from ‘agency missions and a good heart’.

As mentioned, adoption workers often act as gatekeepers; in particular, workers in Taiwan have to help maintain a boundary within the rebuilt relationship between the birth mother and the child. They may provide informal support and consultation to prepare birth mothers for the reunion meeting, including clarifying possible questions and expectations the child may have, addressing emotions when any part of the triad does not want to meet, and dealing with any unintended consequences, such as secret revelation of the birth family, disruption of current life, and/or unwillingness to continue contact. Workers have to work very hard to set up the meeting and ensure both sides are ready for reunion:

We will discuss with her that ‘at the meeting, you may face some issues, then whether you are ready’. ‘Are you willing to be available?’ ‘Do you want to meet or not?’ . . . We will also let her know the child’s readiness. ‘Why does he want to come back and search [for you]? ‘How much does the child know about it [reasons for the adoption]?’ We will let the birth family know the situation. (Taiwanese adoption worker)

If necessary, any part of the triad will be linked to concrete services, for example, counseling or interpreting services, at or after the reunion meeting.

Gaps in service delivery: Balancing the best interests of the child and the family

Throughout the adoption process, ‘the best interests of the child’ is the paramount principle and guides comprehensive assessments for finding the right placement for the child. However, the interests of either the birth or the adoptive family are often compromised. Study participants have identified gaps in service delivery for birth and adoptive families, and noted that especially with limited resources, they need to balance the interests of the child and the family. This theme was particularly strong for Taiwanese adoption workers, in terms of how they work with children, adoptive parents, and birth parents. For Australian adoption workers, there are ethical challenges around birth mothers being motivated to relinquish their children due to poverty and stigma, which harkens back to the ‘Forced Adoption’ era in Australia, when mothers experienced social pressure and lack of support to keep their babies. One Australian adoption professional commented that this ‘ethical stuff’ of having a ‘sense that we are the white wealthy country, helping other countries’ is an ongoing challenge of their role.

First, Taiwanese adoption workers pointed out that adoptions involve conflicting concepts for birth parents: (a) termination of parental rights and (b) openness for connection. The former takes away the parental role while the later encourages the right to remain as a parent. When assessing the appropriateness of connection or reunion, practitioners often stress the child’s readiness, although birth parents may also express strong desires. Thus, post-adoption contact may be mainly pursued for the child’s interests and needs for connecting to their origins.

In Taiwan, some adoption agencies attempt to change their practice by balancing rights of all parties, particularly when the needs in search of biological family members and reunion are brought up. A Taiwanese adoption worker shared:

We actually have to ensure the rights of both sides. When he [the adoptee] wants to search [for birth family], we also need to know more about the birth family’s needs and wants. So when we play the role in-between, we can understand their [the adoptees] intent for searching, but we also have to protect the birth family, especially those who are not ready to connect, which is very important.

Second, adoption practitioners stated that they value the child’s best interests more because the adoption arrangement would determine a child’s whole life, and thus they want to find a ‘good’ and ‘right’ family rather than fulfilling the birth or adoptive family’s needs. A Taiwanese adoption worker said ‘It’s like I am doing God’s job’. So children’s interests are always the priority, potentially neglecting support for birth and adoptive families. Moreover, adoptive families are often assumed to be the ‘good’ family, who should be able to support themselves with necessary services, with Australian adoption professionals acknowledging that many adoptive parents feel that pressure after having to prove their worthiness to adopt. Especially when resources are limited, services are given to children rather than to adoptive or even birth parents. A Taiwanese adoption worker stated:

I think there is room for more discussion. Both sides [the birth family and adoptive family] can also have conversation to provide their views on the adoption service. But children are our main client, so we still focus more on ‘the best interests of the child’.

Finally, both Taiwanese and Australian adoption practitioners highlighted that the gap in service delivery is mainly due to lack of funding. Professionals in Australia commented that there is a lack of focus on post-adoption services, particularly for intercountry adoption (compared to domestic adoptions from out-of-home care) and that it would be helpful to have more services focused on therapeutic support, including issues with attachment and managing behaviors associated with trauma, and parenting children from different cultural backgrounds. Often families come back seeking services when they experience challenges. One Australian adoption professional commented:

One thing we find is that, despite what we go through during the process of training, assessment, and placement, we hear, ‘You never told us that’ when they encounter challenges, even when we can see it was covered in the training. People are good at filtering out info they don’t want to hear.

Most post-adoption services provided by adoption agencies in Taiwan are self-funded. A Taiwanese adoption worker indicated that:

We only received a minimum amount of fees. . . . We don’t have any services for the mother. We are unable to do so because the service terminates here [adoption completion]. The only thing we can do is refer them to other resources, such as free counseling. But truly, this process is very painful for these mothers.

Study participants from Taiwan and Australia both brought up the issue that ‘there are only time-limited services, but adoption is lifelong. . . . Services should be continued’. Adoption agencies in Taiwan and adoption programs in Australian states and territories still play an important service provider role for navigating connections and balancing the interests of all parties of the adoption triad, though no funding is provided by the government in Taiwan and very limited funding is provided in Australia through the Commonwealth of Australia’s funded Intercountry Adoption Service.

Post-adoption services are essential for the adoption triad

Consistent with previous literature, post-adoption needs are complex and the adoption completion means the beginning of adjustment. Post-adoption support might include a range of assistance, such as parenting support, psychoeducation, and mental health services. Adequate post-adoption services could promote positive dynamics within the family and ultimately support the family’s capacity to provide good quality of care and maintain permanency (Dhami et al., 2007; Hartinger -Saunders et al., 2015). Post-adoption services could also be beneficial for future connection, which is imperative to adoptees, especially in intercountry adoption cases.

Though professionals interviewed in this study all agreed that post-adoption services were needed for the adoption triad, it was unfortunate that, due to insufficient funding, little was done after adoption completion, compared to pre-adoption preparation. In fact, many countries do not provide adequate post-adoption services; for example, about one-fourth of US states do not provide any post-adoption services, and 40% of states had very few services (Smith, 2014). This may raise concerns of adoption dissolution following the legal adoption relationship, and past research has found that post-adoption services, such as parent support groups, could significantly reduce the likelihood of adoption dissolution (Hartinger-Saunders et al., 2015).

Post-adoption services are not only important for adoptive children and families, but are crucial for birth parents in dealing with feelings of loss and guilt. Trinder (2000) has argued that ‘adoption is an emotive issue on which almost everyone appears to have an interest and an opinion (p. 25)’. However, engaging birth parents in post-adoption services can be quite challenging (Sellick, 2007), due to funding constraints and the paramountcy of ‘the best interest of the child’, which can render the childless birth family invisible. Continued services are even more difficult, though crucial, in intercountry adoptions where birth parents sometimes do not want to maintain relationships with adoption professionals. Post-adoption services can help birth families receive information about their children to provide reassurance on the child’s well-being and to prepare them for future reunion. Only when birth parents’ needs are well addressed will they be open to maintaining relationships with adoption agencies. The well-being of the adoption triad necessitates support for all its members.

Post-adoption services should be government funded and regulated

Though previous literature and the current study found that post-adoption services are essential, both Taiwan and Australia have very limited services for the period after adoption. In Taiwan, post-adoption services are provided voluntarily by agency workers. In Australia, service provision is limited to crisis-driven counseling and casework, without support for search and reunion, parenting education, peer support, or other services that could benefit adoptees and adoptive families. Lack of funding and dedicated workforce in post-adoption services thus limits professionals’ capacity to provide services in meeting the needs of all parties involved. Professionals interviewed suggested that post-adoptive services should be regulated by law, so funding would be secured to design services accordingly.

The benefit of funding and regulating post-adoption services will not only enhance the well-being of the adoption triad, it will also help develop service protocols according to the phase after adoption. From the first day of the adoption completion, each party of the adoption triad may have different needs for post-adoption services. For example, in the early stage, services for the adoptive dyad are needed for adjustment and adaptation, while those for birth families are related to addressing grief and loss. To be specific, both the adopted child and adoptive parents need to adjust the new relationship and adapt to the change in family dynamics; thus, services for the child may involve cultural and language adjustment, while services for the parents can include parenting education. Birth families, on the other hand, may need support dealing with the loss and any difficulties experienced in life. In the middle stage, which can take many years, services to help them maintain contact via exchanging information are imperative before the child enters adulthood, for the development of adoptive identity (Grotevant et al., 2017). For the child, identity formation can be challenging from the perspective of being an intercountry adopted person and interracial child in the family or the community. Services for connection to their origin can prepare the child with confidence about their bicultural or multicultural identity. Adoptive parents then need more skills to disclose more about birth family and country. And the last stage is to help with reconnection to the family and country of origin, which may have positive benefits for mental health and positive racial identity (Wilson and Summerhill-Coleman, 2013). This process is emotional and time-consuming and needs professionals to get involved to engage the adoption triad with empathy and respect. Only when services are funded and regulated can the system of post-adoption support be evaluated and refined to improve service quality.