The adoption process needs some changes here

Ontario has around 6,000 children who are eligible for adoption. Sadly, some of those children will enter adulthood and age out of the system without ever being adopted. This is due, at least in part, to the outdated and tedious system that is used to approve adoptive families and complete the adoption process.

There are currently around 1,500 families that have been approved to adopt children. When you think about the difference in the figure and the number of children who are waiting to be adopted, you would think that the province would try to get the adoptions processed in a timely manner. That isn’t the case.

Adoptions in Ontario don’t have any central oversight. Instead, there are 47 different children’s aid societies that are each responsible for handling the adoptions in the regions they serve. That is a huge part of the issue because these societies are reportedly telling prospective parents that they would probably fare better with an international adoption.

One family noted that when they attempted to get the process for adoption started in Ontario, the society told them just that. The family opted to move forward with adopting a child in Ontario and pushed through more than two years of home studies and paperwork. Eventually, they gave up because there wasn’t any timeline about when they would actually be able to adopt, even though they had gone through all of those hoops.

If you are considering adoption, there are a variety of factors that you should consider. Understanding some of the laws that apply to your case could help you make decisions about your case.