by Sharon Meyer

Created on: June 18, 2010

There are two technical terms one must come to understand when discussing failed adoptions. One happens before an adoption decree is issued by the courts and the other is used after the adoption is finalized by the courts and an adoption decree is issued.

DISSOLUTION : is the term that is used to describe an adoption that ends after the adoption is legalized by the courts.

DISRUPTION : is the term used to describe an adoption placement that ends while the child is placed in an adoptive family but, before the adoption is legalized by the courts.

There is no concrete data on just how many adoptions fail per year because the only data collected is through public funded state agencies and does not include private or independent adoptions. Another problem that occurs in attempting to collect accurate data on failed adoptions is that once an adoption is finalized the records are sealed so it is then quite possible for a child who was placed for adoption through a state agency to sometime down the road be placed as a private or independent adoption when things do not work out with the first family. 

What we do know from the incomplete data is that the percentage of failed adoptions is somewhere between 10-25% depending upon the adoption population studied.  Younger children have the lowest rates of failed adoptions especially those under  the age of three while older children have the highest rates. The earliest data collected is from 1988 and the most recent is from 2002. The percentage of disruptions and dissolution's has remained pretty much the same even though the number of adoptions that take place yearly has in creased.

The reasons adoptions fail are numerous and can range from poor matches from the very beginning , lack of full disclosure of the child's background history or even lack of parental commitment when serious life situations arise such as death of a spouse.The more support services a family receives before, during and after adoption the lower the likely hood of an adoption disruption or a dissolution.

No matter what the reasoning is for the failed adoption or at what part of the adoption process it fails , to the child involved it is just another life experience to them which ended in failure and damages their very psyche. With each additional placement a child has whether it be in foster care or another adoptive family the statistic rises for further failed placements.

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