Direct Placement Adoptions

The legal placement of children with adoptive families could be carried out in several ways.  Direct placement adoptions and agency placement adoptions are the two major ways of placement of children for adoption.  Direct placement adoption allows the parents of the child to personally select the adoptive parents.  Whereas, in agency placement adoptions the birth parents give their child to an adoption agency and the agency in turn place the child with prospective adoptive parents.

Direct placement adoptions are independent adoptions where neither the department nor an agency is a party to the adoption petition.  Such adoptions give birth parents the right to select and consent to the adoption of their child to a particular approved adoptive home.  This is done generally without the assistance of a child placing agency.  Since adoption is a complex process, some birth parents opt to work with a licensed child placement agency or an attorney who will provide her/him with information about prospective adoptive parents.  The final decision regarding the adoptive parents shall be that of the birth parent.  In most direct placement adoptions identifying information about the birth parents is shared with the adoptive parents.