Child Welfare Information Gateway

Children’s Bureau/ACYF

1250 Maryland Avenue, SW

Eighth Floor

Washington, DC 20024

800.394.3366

Email: info@childwelfare.gov

http://www.childwelfare.gov

BULLETIN FOR 

PROFESSIONALS

September 2012

Use your smartphone to 

access this bulletin onilne.

Providing 

Background 

Information to 

Adoptive Parents 

What’s Inside:

• What information needs to 

be provided

• Helping families 

understand the impact of 

background information 

• International adoption 

where little or no information 

is available 

• Wrongful adoption

• Conclusion

• Additional Resources 

Providing background information to adoptive 

families about their prospective child or youth 

is not only a child welfare professional’s legal 

responsibility, it also plays an important role in 

successful adoption. Complete disclosure about 

a child’s history benefits the child, the adoptive 

family, and the adoption agency or organization 

in the following ways: 

• It helps the prospective adoptive family 

make an informed decision. Families who 

know a child’s complete medical, social, and 
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placement histories are better able to make 

informed decisions about whether they 

are emotionally and financially prepared 

to meet the child’s needs. Accurate 

background information, including any 

medical or mental health diagnoses, may 

also enable families to access Federal 

or State adoption subsidies available for 

children with special needs. 

• It ensures the adopted child or youth 

will have full and accurate knowledge of 

his or her family, medical, and genetic 

history. When planning a family or dealing 

with medical or psychiatric emergencies, 

knowledge of one’s background is crucial. 

This knowledge is also important for 

adopted adolescents’ identity formation.

• It helps protect agencies and 

intermediaries from “wrongful adoption” 

lawsuits. Agencies have been held liable 

by the courts in “wrongful adoption” 

lawsuits for intentionally misrepresenting, 

deliberately concealing, or negligently 

disclosing a child’s background information 

to adoptive parents. 

This factsheet is written for child welfare 

professionals who work with families interested 

in adoption and/or who are about to receive a 

referral or foster or adoptive placement. 

Today, all 50 States, the District of Columbia, 

American Samoa, Guam, the Northern 

Mariana Islands, and Puerto Rico have statutes 

specifying information that must be collected 

What Information 

Needs to Be Provided

and shared with adopting parents. However, 

stipulations regarding who may collect 

background information, what information 

must be collected, and the timeframe for 

collecting and providing information to 

adoptive families vary by State. Child Welfare 

Information Gateway’s State Statute series 

provides information on State adoption laws. 

Collection of Family Information About 

Adopted Persons and Their Birth Families is 

available on the Information Gateway website: 

http://www.childwelfare.gov/systemwide/

laws_policies/statutes/collection.cfm

To find statute information for a particular 

State, visit: http://www.childwelfare.gov/

systemwide/laws_policies/state/index.cfm

While your State’s statutes and your agency’s 

policies specify disclosure requirements, 

below are suggestions for information that 

should be provided to parents. 

• Obtain and disclose “material 

information” on the adopted child’s 

history. Material information is any 

information that might be helpful to a 

prospective adoptive parent in deciding 

whether to adopt a particular child. Some 

wrongful adoption cases have considered 

birth parents’ physical and mental health 

histories and a child’s history of emotional 

or behavioral problems as “material” 

information. Additionally, the definition 

of a child welfare professional’s duty 

to use “reasonable efforts” to discover 

background information varies by State. 

Check your State’s statutes for specific 

requirements. The Indian Child Welfare 

Act (ICWA) requires “active efforts.” Read 

about the ICWA active efforts requirement 

in the Native American Affairs Glossary: 

http://www.mfia.state.mi.us/olmweb/ex/

NAG/GLOSSARY.pdf
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• Provide adoptive parents with written 

disclosure of background and health 

information. While State statutes will 

dictate these requirements, whenever 

possible, agencies should provide actual 

copies of reports, assessments, or other 

documents, rather than summarizing the 

material. Errors in transcription can alter 

the meaning and leave the agency open to 

liability due to negligence. 

• Educate prospective adoptive parents 

about the limitations of information 

gathering and disclosure. Agencies should 

explain to families that in virtually every 

case there is information that the agency 

may not know. Agencies should identify 

any areas where information is known to 

be missing and explain that all existing 

information may not have been discovered. 

For example, children who have been 

sexually abused may not feel comfortable 

speaking about the abuse until they are 

in a safe, stable environment. Indeed, an 

adoptive parent may be the first person 

a child feels comfortable talking to about 

an incident of sexual abuse. See Child 

Welfare Information Gateway’s Obtaining 

Background Information: A Factsheet for 

Families for more information. 

• Disclose the child or youth’s possible 

Tribal heritage to ensure you are in 

compliance with the ICWA. However, not 

all children or youth will know if they are 

American Indian or Native Alaskan. The 

California American Indian Enhancement 

(AIE) Project’s Implementation Toolkit 

includes a list of common responses by 

individuals who may be unaware of or 

unwilling to open up about their heritage 

because of distrust or historical trauma. 

The toolkit also provides a 12-minute video 

highlighting why workers should ask every 

child and family receiving services if they 

have American Indian or Alaska Native 

heritage, and it offers direction on culturally 

sensitive ways to inquire about ancestry. 

For more information, visit the 

AIE Project’s website: 

http://calswec.berkeley.edu/toolkits/

implementation-toolkit-american-indianenhancement-project/implementation-toolkitamerican-indian-enhancement-project

View the FACES instructional video: 

http://calswec.berkeley.edu/toolkits/

implementation-toolkit-americanindian-enhancement-project/

faces-instructional-video

More information on the ICWA is available on 

the Information Gateway website: 

http://www.childwelfare.gov/systemwide/

courts/icwa.cfm

Additionally, in this digital age, it’s important 

to acknowledge that many adoptive families 

may use Facebook and other forms of 

social media to obtain information. Birth 

families may disclose important information 

on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and other 

accounts that can provide adoptive parents 

a better understanding of the child’s family 

history. Being aware of social media accounts 

of the birth families you work with may help 

you obtain some information to provide to 

adopting families. However, be sure to convey 

to the adopting family where the information 

was gathered. Additionally, it’s important to 

recognize that information shared via social 

media outlets may need to be verified. 
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Prospective adoptive parents may ask the 

following questions or request the 

following information: 

• How complete is the social/medical 

history on the birth family, including 

extended family? 

• What is the birth family’s racial, ethnic, 

cultural, and religious background?

• What do the child’s birth parents, siblings, 

and other close relatives look like? Are 

there pictures? Who does the child look like 

in the birth family? 

• Is there a family history of drug or 

alcohol abuse? 

• Is there a family history of mental 

illness or other genetic conditions, or 

predispositions to diseases such as 

diabetes or heart disease? 

• What is known about the birth parents’ 

developmental history—physically, 

emotionally, and cognitively, including 

language development?

• What is known about the educational 

background of the birth parents and the 

child’s siblings?

• What was the birth mother’s health like 

during pregnancy, and what was the 

health of each parent at the time of the 

child’s birth?

• What prenatal care did the child receive, 

and what was his or her condition at birth?

• Are there prior medical, dental, 

psychological, or psychiatric examinations 

and/or diagnoses for this child? 

• Are there records of any immunizations 

and/or health care received while the child 

was in out-of-home care? 

• What is the child’s current need for medical, 

dental, developmental, psychological, or 

psychiatric care?

• What is the child’s HIV status?

• Why did the birth parents make an 

adoption plan for the child, or why was the 

child removed from his or her birth family?

• Did the child suffer any physical, sexual, 

or emotional abuse or neglect? How 

old was he or she? How often did these 

traumas occur? 

• How many placements did the child 

experience, where and with whom (e.g., 

relatives, foster families, residential 

treatment facilities, hospitals)? What were 

the reasons for any placement changes? 

What does the child remember about his or 

her placement experiences? What does the 

child believe about why he or she moved 

from one caregiver to another?

• Where is the child currently enrolled and 

what is his or her performance at school?

• What are the results of any educational 

testing? Does the child have any special 

educational needs or outstanding abilities?

• What are the child’s special interests, 

talents, and/or hobbies?
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Information Gateway. Available online at http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/f_backgroundbulletin.cfm

Helping Families 

Understand the Impact of 

Background Information

Social workers can help prospective 

families understand the possible impact 

of a child’s history, particularly trauma or 

institutionalization, and mitigating factors such 

as a strong child-parent relationship (Whitten & 

Waver, 2010). Workers may provide the family 

with a written description of the critical events 

of the child’s life (such as abuse/neglect or 

removal from birth parents) and then ask the 

adoptive family to write down their thoughts on 

the following questions (Edwards, 2002):

• What messages or beliefs (about parents, 

themselves, the world, social workers, 

adults, etc.) might a child have learned from 

his or her experiences?

• What might be the expected feelings 

and behaviors of a child who believes 

these things?

• What are the recurring themes in this 

child’s life?

• What new messages might the adoptive 

parents want to give this child? 

• How will the adoptive parents feel about 

discussing this information with the child?

This process can be repeated during the 

visiting phase of placement for domestic 

adoptions and again when the child moves 

into the home. After the child has been with 

the family for some time, the social worker 

can review with the family their thoughts at 

each stage of the domestic placement process 

(Zeigler, 1996). The adoption professional 

should be ready to provide referrals for 

specific postplacement and postlegal 

adoption services, as needed. Providing 

adoptive parents with opportunities to 

anticipate the impact of previous experiences 

on their children helps to educate the 

prospective family and ensure that they are 

connected with needed services. 

International Adoptions 

When Agencies Have 

Little or No Information

In some countries, particularly where children 

have been institutionalized or spent periods 

of time in orphanages, full medical records 

may not be available. Translation issues, 

cultural differences, and differences in medical 

systems can make it difficult to interpret the 

available information. In some instances, 

there may be no information at all regarding 

a child’s social and medical history. Agencies 

can disclose only the information they have 

obtained. Clearly communicate to families, 

in writing, the limitations (in quantity and 

reliability) of information made available. 

Ideally, caseworkers prepare families for the 

need to make a decision about a child even 

when there is little or no information.
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Information Gateway. Available online at http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/f_backgroundbulletin.cfm

The Ohio Supreme Court first recognized 

“wrongful adoption” in 1986 as a valid 

reason for adoptive parents to file a lawsuit 

against an adoption agency. In that case, 

the court found that the agency failed to 

disclose or misrepresented the health status 

or background of an adopted child at the time 

the child was placed. 

In addition to the State Statute series and 

searchable database, Information Gateway has 

produced the resource guide Online Resources 

for State Child Welfare Law and Policy: http://

www.childwelfare.gov/systemwide/laws_

policies/statutes/resources.pdf

Emmaneel (1999) discusses the evolution of 

wrongful adoption legislation in the United 

States and other issues pertaining to the 

responsibilities of child welfare professionals 

and the rights of adoptive and birth parents: 

http://digitalcommons.law.ggu.edu/cgi/

viewcontent.cgi?article=1740&context=ggulrev

The North American Council on Adoptable 

Children’s (NACAC’s) article “Families Need 

the Whole Truth” (2004) discusses the 

importance of disclosure in order to ensure 

successful adoptions and provides advice for 

agencies: http://www.nacac.org/adoptalk/

wholetruth.html

Wrongful Adoption

Agencies need to provide full background 

information to prospective parents in order 

to ensure the adoption is as successful as 

possible as well as to meet the State’s laws. 

However, merely meeting the State’s statutory 

requirements may not be enough to guard 

against wrongful adoption claims. Agencies 

and intermediaries can minimize their 

exposure to liability for wrongful adoption by 

taking the following steps in keeping with their 

State’s statutes and administrative regulations:

• Develop clear policies and guidelines on 

the collection and disclosure of social 

and family background information.

Ensure that, at a minimum, agency 

policies regarding information collection 

and disclosure meet your State’s legal 

requirements. Standardize protocols for 

collection and disclosure to ensure all 

necessary records and evaluations are 

obtained, and provide clear guidelines to 

caseworkers carrying out these protocols.

• Make staff training a priority. Agencies 

should ensure staff members are thoroughly 

familiar with best practices and State 

legal requirements for collecting and 

communicating background information. 

In-field coaching is a valuable way to ensure 

staff are properly trained on this important 

issue. Visit the National Implementation 

Resource Center for more information 

on on-the-job training: http://nirn.fpg.

unc.edu/learn-implementation/activeimplementation-theory-and-practice/

coaching

Policies for 

Providing Information
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Information Gateway. Available online at http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/f_backgroundbulletin.cfm

More training information is available on 

the Information Gateway Curricula and 

Training for Adoption Administrators, 

Managers, and Supervisors web section:

http://www.childwelfare.gov/adoption/

adopt_managers/curricula.cfm

• Obtain appropriate liability insurance.

Agencies might consider obtaining or 

reviewing their current liability insurance 

to ensure they have general liability and 

umbrella clauses, as well as professional 

liability to protect their staff in the event 

of claims related to professional services 

rendered. Membership organizations such as 

the National Association of Social Workers 

will provide insurance or information as to 

where to obtain such insurance. 

http://www.naswassurance.org/

social_worker_professional_liability.

php?page_id=11

Check with the Child Welfare Information 

Gateway, info@childwelfare.gov or 

800.394.3366, for current resources on 

liability insurance.

Disclosure statutes and policies vary by 

State. Below are examples of State policies 

and procedures for providing material 

background information to prospective 

adoptive parents. 

Our Kids of Miami-Dade/Monroe (2010)

Disclosure of Information to Prospective 

Adoptive Parents 

http://www.ourkids.us/ourpartners/

Documents/Disclosure%20of%20

Information%20to%20Prospective%20

Adoptive%20Parents/Disclosure%20of%20

Information%20to%20Prospective%20

Adoptive%20Parents.pdf

Michigan Department of Human 

Services (2010) 

Required Information to Be Shared 

(Adoption Services Manual 670) 

http://www.mfia.state.mi.us/olmweb/ex/

adm/670.pdf

Oklahoma Department of 

Human Services

Medical and Social History Report 

for Adoption 

http://www.okdhs.org/NR/rdonlyres/

D32AB6E5-A2E1-4C45-8752-

C7E58E010C40/0/04AN347E.pdf

SAMPLE STATE DISCLOSURE 

POLICIES AND FORMS
Providing Background Information to Adoptive Parents http://www.childwelfare.gov

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Conclusion

When information about developmental, 

trauma, placement, educational, and social 

histories is disclosed to prospective parents 

at the beginning of the adoption process, 

adoptive parents are more likely to have more 

realistic expectations of what it will be like 

to parent their child or youth. Full disclosure 

can help adoptive parents become the best 

possible parents for their child, may help 

reduce adoption disruption and dissolution, 

and may increase adoption stability (Barth 

& Berry, 1988; McRoy, 1999). Child welfare 

professionals have a legal responsibility to 

provide prospective adoptive parents with 

this important information, and it’s in the best 

interests of the children and their new families. 

Child Welfare Information Gateway’s 

Bringing Children and Families Together web 

section provides a list of recommended books 

and journal articles you can find at your local 

library, bookstore, or download onto your 

e-reader:

http://www.childwelfare.gov/adoption/

preplacement/bringing_together.cfm

Additional Resources

Finding a Fit That Will Last a Lifetime, A 

Guide to Connecting Adoptive Families 

With Waiting Children, a resource produced 

by AdoptUSKids, offers practice tips and an 

information-gathering checklist:

http://www.adoptuskids.org/_assets/files/

NRCRRFAP/resources/finding-a-fit-that-willlast-a-lifetime.pdf

The National Resource Center for Adoption’s 

Adoption Competency Curriculum provides 

useful strategies, information, frequently 

asked questions, and other tools, such as 

the Assessment Checklist. The checklist 

helps professionals gauge whether sufficient 

information has been collected: 

http://www.nrcadoption.org/pdfs/acc/

PH%20-%20Family%20Assessment%20&%20

Prep%203-10.pdf

The article “Plan, Prepare, and Support 

to Prevent Disruptions” discusses the role 

information can play in reducing disruption 

and dissolution and is available on NACAC’s 

website: http://www.nacac.org/adoptalk/

planpreparesupport.html

“Ethics and Adoptive Family Recruitment” 

from the Spring 2004 issue of NACAC’s 

Adoptalk explores the use of photolistings 

for child-specific recruitment and its impact 

on disclosure: 

http://www.nacac.org/adoptalk/ethics.html
Providing Background Information to Adoptive Parents http://www.childwelfare.gov

References

Barth, R. P., Berry, M., Yoshikami, R., Goodfield, R. K., & Carson, M. L. (1988). Predicting adoption 

disruption. Social Work, 33, 227–233.

Edwards, L. (2002). Opening Pandora’s box: Helping children heal through storytelling. Presented 

at the Child Welfare League of America National Adoption Conference. Ft. Lauderdale, FL. 

Emmaneel, J. (2010). Beyond wrongful adoption: Expanding adoption agency liability to include 

a duty to investigate and a duty to warn. Golden Gate University Law Review, 29(2). Retrieved 

from http://digitalcommons.law.ggu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1740&context=ggulrev

McRoy, R. G. (1999). Special needs adoptions: Practice issues. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc.

Whitten, K.L., & Weaver, S.R. (2010). Adoptive family relationships and healthy adolescent 

development: A risk and resilience analysis. Adoption Quarterly 13(3-4), doi 

10.1080/10926755.2010.524873

Zeigler, K. (1996). Making disclosure. The Roundtable 10(1). Retrieved from 

http://www.nrcadoption.org/pdfs/roundtable/V10N1-1996.pdf

Suggested Citation: Child Welfare Information Gateway. (2012). Providing background 

information to adoptive parents. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human 

Services, Children’s Bureau. 

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Administration for Children and Families

Administration on Children, Youth and Families

Children’s Bureau