Adoption is a deeply meaningful journey, but the language surrounding it can often be new or confusing. Whether you’re an expectant parent, adoptive family, or social work professional, becoming familiar with the terminology will allow you to navigate the process more clearly and confidently.
Here are some of the key terms associated with adoption that you’ll be hearing as you explore adoption.
Adoption Consultant: A professional who provides adoptive parents with education, coaching, and help navigating the process.
Adoption Decree: The final legal document issued by a court that makes an adoption official and permanently transfers parental rights to the adoptive parents.
Adoption Facilitator: An unlicensed individuals or businesses that market themselves as matchmakers between expectant parents and adoptive families
Adoption Plan: A series of choices made by expectant parents detailing their wishes for the adoption.
Closed Adoption: A type of adoption where the birth parent(s) and the adoptive family do not exchange personal information and no communication happens after placement.
Cradle Care: Private foster care provided by an adoption agency on a short-term basis
Designated Adoption: An adoption where the birth parent(s) met and chose the adoptive family independently of a third party (agency or facilitator).
Failed Match: A situation in which an expectant parent and adoptive family have officially matched, but placement does not take place because the birth parents decided to parent.
Finalization: The court hearing that finalizes the adoptive family as legal parents
First Parent: A term used to identify a birth or biological parent
Home Study: Pre-adoptive home studies are required by all adoptive parents in the State of Texas before placement can happen.
ICPC: Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children, a legal agreement in the U.S. that regulates the placement of children across state lines in foster care, kinship care, and adoption.
ICWA: Indian Child Welfare Act, a federal law that protects the rights of Native American children and prioritizes placement within the tribe to ensure that cultural connections are maintained.
Identified Adoption: An adoption in which the expectant and adoptive parents find each other before working with an agency or attorney to complete the process. Also known as a designated or independent adoption.
Kinship Adoption: Adoption by a biological family member such as an aunt or grandparent
Legal Risk Adoption: Placement of a child with an adoptive family when one or both birth parents’ rights have not yet been terminated.
Open Adoption: A type of adoption where the birth parent(s) and adoptive family exchange personal information and communicate directly with each other.
Options Counseling: A service offered to expectant parents that allows them to process feelings about their unplanned pregnancy and make informed decisions about their next steps.
Parenting Plan: A plan put together to aid the expectant parents and their support systems in planning on the how, when, where and who of parenting the child after delivery.
Placement: Transfer of physical custody of a child to the adoptive parents.
Post Adoption Contact Agreement (PACA): A plan of agreed contact and openness between birth parents and the adoptive family.
Putative Father: A man who is alleged to be or claims to be the biological father of a child born out of wedlock.
Paternity Registry: A state-run database that allows men to declare their rights as a potential father.
Semi-Open Adoption: A type of adoption where the birth parent(s) receive photos and updates on their child, but all communication goes through the adoption agency.
Relinquishment: The process through which a birth parent voluntarily terminates his or her parental rights.
Revocation: The legal period during which a birth parent can change their mind and withdraw consent to an adoption, as defined by state law and type of adoption.
Teratogen: A substance that can cause abnormalities or non-hereditary birth defects in a developing embryo or fetus.
Triad: The three main parties of the adoption relationship: the birth parents, the adoptive parents and the adoptee.
