Guest blogger: Kayla Hinrichs
In the December 2015 article “Detectives unearth long-lost links for kids needing adoption,” reporter Erin Adler from the Star Tribune highlights a semi-recent phenomenon that expands resources for social workers searching for permanency and supportive caregivers for children within the child welfare system. This article discusses how social media and other technology play a part in locating people from foster children’s pasts to create more opportunities for adoption and expand support systems. Much of this “detective” work is happening through local private non-profit organizations who often have more time and ability to search for connections than a public child welfare agency may have. These adoption recruiters, who were at one time more closed off to looking for relatives or supports already connected to the child, now find themselves using technology “from social media like Facebook to sophisticated search engines to track down the long-lost connections (Adler, 2015).”
This article has several strong points; first, that it highlights the adaptation and collaboration that agencies embrace in order to better serve children in the child welfare system. With further access to technology, the system is embracing some of the new tools available and making greater attempts to preserve families, which research shows is extremely positive for children. Not only does larger access to technology and more time spent unearthing connections help social workers find potential adoptive families, but it can also help build a history for a child who may have bounced around from family to family and could benefit from understanding their history.
The article paints a picture of the use of technology being all positive without mentioning some of the ethical concerns that come along with incorporating social media into the work. Digging so deeply into personal lives can be a breach of privacy and confidentiality, for both the birth family that may not want to be found and for the foster child that may not want their information out there for anyone to see. With the utilization of sites like Facebook, potential adoptive families or kin may have posted something in the past that could “disqualify” them from the opportunity to adopt a child in the eyes of a social worker, which is another potential breach of privacy issue that the article doesn’t mention.
Adoption agencies within the Twin Cities are striving to preserve families for children and not simply place children with families with whom they have no connection. This article does a thorough job at dispelling the myth that adoption agencies do not look into a child’s history and simply find the easiest option for permanency.
Work cited: Adler, E. (2015, December 22). Detectives unearth long-lost links for kids needing adoption. Star Tribune.
Retrieved from http://www.startribune.com/detectives-unearth-long-lost-links-for-kids-needing-adoption/363014041/