ABSTRACT About 400 children in need in Japan are placed in a “special adoption” each year. The modest numbers are partly the result of a cultural predisposition to think of adoption in terms of family lineage, which discourages the adoption of nonrelatives or children of “bad blood.” Special adoption is also limited by concerns over the confidentiality of family registers, by a heavy reliance on institutional care, and by a narrowly defined concept of an “ideal child.” The limited professional organization of adoption services in Japan makes national reform difficult. However, some adoption agencies have made local efforts to increase placements by avoiding institutional care or assisting in maintaining confidentiality. Potential parents have also been encouraged to extend their idea of an acceptable child in trial placements, and some children have been placed with mixed couples and foreign residents.

ABSTRACTRecent work shows that the governmental cost of adoption is about half the cost of long-term foster care for children whose birth parents' rights have been terminated. Because adoption is also associated with greater accumulation of human and social capital, the total savings to government in areas such as special education and criminal justice is of the same magnitude as the child welfare savings. The private benefit to adopted children in terms of additional income earned over their working lives is similarly large. In all, a dollar spent on the adoption of a child from foster care yields about three dollars in benefits.

When a state places its legal imprimatur on the unmaking of one family and the making of another, the state should insure to the greatest extent possible that all the individuals involved have followed or have been afforded the best practices that ethics and humanity demand. The Uniform Adoption Act sets out commonly accepted goals of state adoption laws, among them the goals of protecting minor children against unnecessary separation from their birth parents and of ensuring that a decision by a birth parent to relinquish a minor child and consent to the childs adoption is informed and voluntary. With respect to achieving these goals in connection with services for mothers of newborn infants, the laws governing the timing of their consents and the provision of counseling to them can create powerful incentives for service providers to follow the best practices that characterize ethical and humane services. This is possible when the laws are based on an understanding that for mothers considering placing their children for adoption, skilled, unbiased counseling is invaluable; complete, well-communicated information is indispensable; and adequate time is, perhaps, the wisest counsellor of all.

The Article examines the role that legal representation of birth and prospective parents may or may not play in independent domestic adoptions in furthering two primary goals that characterize ethically and humanely conducted adoptions, deliberate decision making and finality. Ideally, these two goals are complementary and can be balanced with one another. There is, however, a danger of the second goal eclipsing the first. Many state laws appear to value an increase in infant adoptions over the goal of encouraging careful deliberation. Most domestic infant adoptions involve powerful market forces as well as powerful emotional pressures, and they occur in the context of a national commitment to encourage adoptions of older children and children with special needs. Infant adoption service providers' livelihoods or profits generally depend on successfully arranging adoptions for their primary clients, who, for the most part, are relatively prosperous, well-established, and socially favored married couples whose desires to bear children have been thwarted by infertility. In their efforts to adopt, these couples often face great difficulties and pay high fees. By contrast, birth parents in the stressful situations that lead them to consider placing their infants for adoption are not an organized group and are relatively powerless and socially disfavored. To help ensure that the goals of adoption are successfully met, states' adoptions laws should make clear that attorneys may not simultaneously represent adoptive parents and birth parents. Attorneys and other adoption services providers should be required to clearly inform birth parents, orally and in acknowledged writings, that birth parents' interests are not and may not be represented by attorneys who represent prospective adoptive parents. While separate representation for birth parents is unlikely to become commonplace - and when it is funded by prospective adoptive parents, involves a danger of conflicts of interest - birth parents should be clearly informed about their right to have legal representation.

PSYCHOLOGICAL ISSUES IN ADOPTION: RESEARCH AND PRACTICE, edited by David M. Brodzinsky and Jesus Palacios.Westport, CT: Praeger, 2005 (324 pages, ISBN 0-275-97970-9, hardcover, 115.00). Reviewed by Patricia Irwin Johnston.CONNECTING WITH KIDS THROUGH STORIES, by Denise B. Lacher, Todd Nichols, and Joanne C. May.(2005) Jessica Kingsley Publishers, London, UK. 143 pages. ISBN-13: 978 1 843107972 (paperback) Reviewed by Beth M. Waggenspack.

ABSTRACTA sizable proportion of special needs adoptions result in a disruption/dissolution or a displacement. Researchers emphasize the importance of comprehensive preparation to support adoption adjustment. This article examines the differential receipt of preparatory services based upon child and family characteristics and the child's risk history. Analyses of three types of preparatory services identified through factor analysis, including general, biological, and behavioral information/services, confirm differential preparation of adoptive families. However, three variables were predictive of receipt of all types of preparation, including type of adoption, kinship status, and pre-adoptive risk history. Implications for practice and research are presented.

ABSTRACTThis study used data from multiple sources to document interest in foster care adoption among general applicants nationally, the characteristics of general applicant adoptive parents and the children they adopt, the experiences general applicants have had with the adoption process, and factors that influence the success of general applicants in having a child placed with them. Data from a national survey of adoption managers suggest that there are approximately 240,000 calls each year from persons seeking to adopt children in foster care. It appears that the vast majority of persons who contact child welfare agencies about adoption drop-out early in the process.

ABSTRACTFAMILIES BY LAW: AN ADOPTION READER, edited by Naomi R. Cahn and Joan Heifetz Hollinger. New York: New York University Press, 2004, 347 pages, ISBN 0-8147-1590-7, paperback edition, $24.00. Reviewed by Yvette V. Perry.WELCOME HOME! AN INTERNATIONAL AND NONTRADITIONAL ADOPTION READER, edited by Lita Linzer Schwartz and Florence W. Kaslow. New York: The Haworth Clinical Practice Press, 2003, hardcover. Reviewed by Danielle Sandage.