30 years of adoptions reporting
The article was originally posted on LinkedIn by by Barry Sandison, AIHW CEO.
For three decades, the AIHW’s Adoptions Australia reports have been the authoritative source of national adoptions data for Australia.
The release today of Adoptions Australia 2019–20, is a continuation of the Institute’s work providing valuable insights on domestic and intercountry (overseas) adoptions.
States and territories began supplying data to the AIHW 30 years ago and this was used to produce our first report in the series: Adoptions Australia 1990–91. The adoptions data collection has been used as part of Australia’s reporting obligations under the Hague Convention since 2000–01 and since 2011–12, we’ve been reporting on processing times for intercountry adoption.
Today’s report shows that although the overall number of finalised adoptions in Australia has declined 50% over the past 25 years, they increased between 2015–16 and 2019–20 due to an increase in adoptions by long-term carers.
COVID-19 has affected adoption processes since 2020—particularly intercountry adoption processes—and its impacts may become more apparent in adoptions data in future years.
The AIHW will continue to work with Commonwealth, state and territory adoption authorities to manage and improve the Adoptions Australia data collection so that it can inform policymakers, service providers, researchers and the public.
Read today’s full report here.