An Assessment Of Adoptıon Processes In Haıtı: Case Study Of The Instıtute Of Socıal Welfare And Research(Iswr)

Abstract

PELLITIER, Robenson. “An Assessment of Adoption Processes in Haiti: Case Study of the Institute of Social Welfare and Research (ISWR)”, Master Thesis, Ankara, 2018. Adoption is defined as a measure of child protection used through the child welfare system to provide a permanent home with a parentless child or to facilitate to a childless parent to find a child. Further, that measure is pretended to be in the best interest of the child. The main purpose of this study is to understand the adoption process in Haiti related to the principle of the best interests of the child as defined in the Convention on the Rights of Children of 20 November 1989 and The Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and International Cooperation in Respect to Intercountry Adoption of 29 May 1993. A qualitative research was conducted with a sample of 12 participants. A semi-structured interview proceeded with three (3) child welfare public authorities working at the Institute of Social Welfare and Research(ISWR), two (2) foster care managers, and seven (7) birth parents of adopted children. Moreover, a content analysis is conducted to analyze and interpret the data. The finding of this research indicates that the adoption process is focused only on the management of the children’s adoption files as being arguments on the best interests of the child and ignored the different environments of connection of the child as vital elements in child development in the post-adoption.The result suggests that the child surroundings connections might be the tool to predict the best interests of the child in the adoption process.