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Research will expand on interracial adoption: Cultural idenity, Challenges, & Policies/Laws

Between 2008 and 2009, approximately 2,700 white children were adopted compared to only 410 mixed-race children and only 90 black children in the UK. Approximately one in ten children in care is black and one in nine children in care comes from a racially mixed background Black, mixed-race and Asian children typically wait to be adopted on average three years longer than white children.

Children of mixed ethnicities are more likely than other children to be placed for adoption. Local authorities find it difficult to find children of mixed ethnicities matches that meet the 2002 Adoption and Children Act that ‘due consideration’ should be given to ethnicity in adoption placements. The Adoption and Children Act states that ethnicity placement is only given if the children’s welfare is compromised during the placement choice. Adoption placement of children of mixed ethnicities is difficult because it is influenced by values, ideology and anti-oppressive practices that need to be considered within the practice.

Mixed ethnicity children are subject to racism and complete inclusion of both parts of their heritage. Mixed children will struggle with discrimination from both parts of their ethnicity, desiring solidarity from both parts of their ethnic backgrounds.

[Wood, M. (2009). Mixed ethnicity, identity and adoption: research, policy and practiceChild & Family Social Work, 14(4), 431-439. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2206.2009.00614.x]/references>

In 2008 the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute reignited the transracial adoption debate with its recommendation that race should be considered in selecting adoptive parents for children awaiting placement. According to the report, which is based on a synthesis of the TRA literature, transracial adoptees face additional and complex challenges with (1) coping with being "different," particularly if they have grown up in homogeneous white continuities,(2) struggling to fit in with both their adoptive families and the black community, feeling awkward and out of place in both settings, (3) developing a positive racial/ethnic identity, acknowledging racial differences but without expressing racial pride, and 4. managing racial prejudice and discrimination (Donaldson Report, May 2008). The Donaldson Report links the challenges transracial adoptees face with socialization practices of adoptive parents that minimize racial differences, particularly when parents do not facilitate their children's understanding of and comfort with their own ethnicities(Donaldson Report, May 2008). [Butler-Sweet, C. (2011). "A Healthy Black Identity" Transracial Adoption, Middle-Class Families, and Racial Socialization. Journal Of Comparative Family Studies, 42(2), 193-212.]/references>