Zug: SC must close loophole that endangers children through ‘re-homing’

‘Re-homing” is the practice of placing one’s adopted child with a new family. Frequently, these new families are strangers, and unlike the initial adoption, re-homing occurs without any judicial or other governmental oversight. Child-welfare advocates estimate that at least 10 percent of all foreign children are re-homed and that this percentage increases for older adoptees. South Carolina families adopted 122 foreign children last year, and nearly half of them were older adoptees. So it’s likely that at least a dozen children in our state are re-homed every year. This practice needs to end.

Last year, Reuters News Service documented numerous re-homed children who were subject to physical or sexual abuse. One of the cases involved a former S.C. couple whose biological child had been removed by DSS a few years earlier because state officials determined the parents were “psychotic” with “violent tendencies.” Yet this couple was able to take custody of a 13-year-old girl. Until that report was published, few people had heard of the practice, and no state specifically prohibited it. As a result of that report, Wisconsin became the first state to ban re-homing, last spring.

Last month, Rep. Jennie Horne introduced a bill to make re-homing a crime in South Carolina.

The Wisconsin statute made it illegal for anyone not licensed by the state to advertise a child over age 1 for adoption or any other custody transfer. Rep. Horne’s bill, H.3466, would prohibit an “adoptive parent, or a person acting on behalf of an adoptive parent” from placing an “adopted child with another person with the intent that the other person will act as the custodian of the adopted child and provide permanently for the child’s care and supervision, unless the other person is a relative of the adoptive parent of the first, second, or third degree.” Violators would be subject to fines and imprisonment.

Criminalizing re-homing is an important step in ensuring the safety of South Carolina’s adopted children, but H.3466 also recognizes that in most cases, re-homing is an act of desperation. The advertisements on adoption message boards and Facebook pages reveal parents unprepared and ill-equipped to deal with the emotional and behavioral problems of their adopted children. Often, these parents note that they only considered re-homing after their requests for help from public child welfare agencies were denied. In July, a federal official told a U.S. Senate panel that the best way to prevent re-homing was to provide enhanced preparation, support and post-adoption services for adoptive families, particularly those adopting children internationally. Wisely, the S.C. legislation includes such services.

Specifically, H.3466 requires adoptive parents to be provided with information about post-adoptive services in order to “minimize the likelihood of adoption disruptions.” These services would included developmental and educational services, mental health services, therapeutic services to improve the child’s attachment, behavior and social skills, individual, family or marital counseling and respite care. It also requires all attorneys and agencies handling international adoptions to have special licensing and accreditation.

One weakness is that it does little to ensure potential adoptive parents are sufficiently prepared for the challenges of the adoption. Re-homing typically occurs when adoptive parents are unequipped to handle their adoptive child’s particular emotional or behavioral problems. Sometimes this is a result of the sending country providing too little or misleading information about the child. In other cases, it is the result of parents not truly understanding what is required to care for a child with special needs.

Certainly the legislation could be improved by requiring prospective parents to be screened properly to ensure they are adequately prepared for the challenges of adopting a child with emotional and-or behavioral problems. But even without that addition, H. 3466 is an important step in ensuring the safety of South Carolina’s adopted children. It would address the problem of re-homing in South Carolina and reaffirm the state’s commitment to protecting the welfare of its children. This bill deserves our support.

This story was originally published February 11, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Zug: SC must close loophole that endangers children through ‘re-homing’."