• Journal of the Korean Society of Child Welfare
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• no.54
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• pp.45-77
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• 2016

This study is a policy research conducted for the purpose of finding new roles for adoption agencies and suggesting future tasks for effective adoption practice in Korea. To achieve this goal, this study analyzed the characteristics of adoption practices and the roles of adoption agencies in four countries (U.K., Sweden, U.S.A. and Hong Kong) and conducted a survey of the staff members of adoption agencies in Korea. The survey questions included: (1) the real changes and problems they feel in the adoption field after the amendment to the 'Act on special cases concerning adoption' in 2012; (2) the prospects for change in the future; and (3) the new roles they expect in the changing context. Based on the review of foreign cases and the results of the survey, the future direction of adoption practice in Korea and the new roles and tasks of adoption agencies were suggested.

• Journal of Family Resource Management and Policy Review
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.1-17
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• 2022

This study provides a critical analysis of the Family Center's programs for adoptive families by interviewing employees at these centers and at Adoption Agencies who have experiences with adoption programs. For this study, nine such workers from three separate Family Centers and three such workers from two separate Adoption Agencies have (voluntarily) engaged in in-depth interviews. Major findings from the interviews are that the Family Centers were initially motivated to carry out adoption family programs for three principal reasons: they located many families (in need of adoption family program); potential adoptees were interested in the program; adoption families participated in the pre-existing programs such as Self-help Group and Co-parenting Space. Workers in the study also reported that they approach to an adoption family and their contemplation on ways to provide better services to the adoption families. They don't have any official and formal manual or guidelines from the Government Ministries and offices such as Korean Institute for Healthy Family; as a result, the workers at Family Centers have endeavored to gain connection with Adoption Agencies in hopes of cooperation with them and to improve the services at Family Centers. For benefits of Family Centers as a delivery system, they mentioned nationwide infrastructure, family professional, and arrangement of integrated program for family. For improvements, they listed awareness education based on a thorough consideration of adoptee's varied characteristics, close cooperation with adoption institutions, provision of basic operational manual from Korean Institute for Healthy Family, and governmental efforts to enlarge the consideration pool for families.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.411-428
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• 1995

Intercountry adoption, one type of forced migration, has increased significantly in recent decades. The adoption of Korea-born children by Americans has been the strongest intercountry adoption linkage in the world. The intercountry adoption stream was strongly influenced by intercountry adoption policies, and socio-cultural settings in both South Korea and the United States. Socio-cultural factors in South Korea made local adoption undesirable and helped for abandoned children to be adopted by Americans, while socio-cultural factors in the United States had reduced the number of locally available infants for adoption, and increased the demand for infants from abroad. Distribution of Korea-born adoptees shows concentration in the Pacific Northwest, Upper Midwest and Northeast areas which have not attracted Korean immigrants so generally. The trend of concentration shows some increased importances in the outlying states in the northern United States. The location and activity of agencies shaped the spatial distribution of Korea-born adoptees in the United States.

• Journal of Korean Library and Information Science Society
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.51-76
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• 2010

This study discussed the trends and characteristics of mental health services in the public libraries of North America. To accomplish this, this study collected its data through literature surveys, observations and interviews with librarians within the Vancouver public library system. The results show that there were many cases in which patrons asked public libraries for information on their mental health problems and the public libraries helped the patrons cope with their problems. The public libraries' assistance programs for national tragedies and natural disasters were temporary services. On the other hand, public libraries were continuously advising and guiding patrons dealing with emotional and psychological problems through the readers' advisory and information services. Specifically, public libraries were actively assisting various sensitive issues that are generated in the development of children and youths(for example, adoption, divorce and separation, remarriage, family, friendship, disabilities, death, self-esteem, emotions, bulling, violence, abuse, suicide, illness, addiction, sexual health, youth pregnancy and so on). The key role of librarians under these circumstances was to guide and recommend appropriate books and professional institutions that help solve the problems.