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‘[W]e Find Families for Children, Not Children for Families’: An Incident in the Long and Unhappy History of Relations between Social Workers and Adoptive Parents

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 March 2012

Marian Quartly
Marian Quartly*
Affiliation:
School of Philosophical, Historical and International Studies, Monash University E-mail: marian.quartly@monash.edu
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Abstract

Relatively little work on adoption focuses on the role of social workers. This article gives an account of the conflict between social workers and prospective adoptive parents which developed in Australia in the 1970s, taking as a case study the conflicting roles of adoptive parent advocates and professional social workers within the Standing Committee on Adoption in the Australian state of Victoria. Its overarching concern lies with the historical attitudes of the social work profession towards adoption, both domestic and intercountry, as these have changed from an embrace of both adoption and adoptive parents to mutual alienation. It concludes that the inclusive practice of radical social work could only briefly contain contesting client groups.

Keywords

Adoptionadoption historysocial workerssocial work professionsadoption reformintercountry adoption
Type
Themed Section on Waiting for a Better World: Critical and Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Intercountry Adoption
Information
Social Policy and Society , Volume 11 , Issue 3 , July 2012 , pp. 415 - 427
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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