Adoption is a complex matter.
There are many issues that need to beaddressed when one is considering adoption, either as a prospectiveadoptive parent or as a birth parent who is considering relinquishing hisor her child for adoption. In the days when all adoptions were handled by traditional child welfareagencies, once a child was declared legally free for adoption , the social workers working with the new family and completing the final adoption generally followed a very straightforward procedure leading to legal finalization. Since 1979, all adoptions require extensive social work assessment and counselling for the parties.,whether public through a children's aid society or privately, through alicensee. These licensees, usually a social worker or lawyer, are licensed andregulated by the Ministry of Community and Social Services and functionunder The Child and Family Services Act In 1995, as is evident to any member of the public not necessarilypersonally involved in adoption, the legal issues regarding adoption andthe rights of all the parties, seem paramount. This is evidenced bymedia attention on Baby Jessica in the United States and Tina Sawan and thechild she relinquished for adoption in Alberta, Canada, to name but two ofmany highly publicized cases.