WKSU: Part 1: Intro to Adoption, page 2

A recent poll, sponsored by the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption in Columbus, suggests almost 40 percent of adults in the United States have considered adoption. That's a surprise to the people trying to place available children in permanent homes. Sushila Mmoore directs the adoption and foster care programs for Summit County...

Moore: Right now our system is very saturated and we know that it becomes more and more difficult to recruit these families as our society changes and priorities change. People come from a lot of two parent working families, and to maintain the children they already have sometimes is a lot, let alone take on foster children or even adopt.

Anyone over the age of 18 without a criminal record can adopt in Ohio. You can be married or single, straight or gay, a homeowner or a renter. But there are many routes a person can take to adopt a child including private agency adoptions, public agency adoptions, and international adoptions. Krissy Kolaric is the co-owner of "A Child's Waiting," a private adoption agency...

pictured from L to R: Sushila Moore, David Zimmerman. Summit County Children's Services

Kolaric: In the private adoptions the birth mothers typically are the one selecting the family for the child. Those children tend to be newborns. Through the private program that I just discussed...with the birth parents there are fees involved. The fees can range anywhere from, I've heard as low as $1000, I've heard as high as $40,000, depending on the circumstances of the birth mother, depending on which agency you work through. Through the public system there are no fees involved. If a child is in the custody of a county, regardless if it's in the state of Ohio or anywhere in the United States, there are no fees involved in your adoption.

It's unfortunate, but the reality in the adoption world is that infants, especially healthy white infants, are expensive...older children, who are usually in foster care, are free. Sushila Moore says when people come to Summit County Children's Services looking for an infant, she tells them that public agencies have very few infants or toddlers for adoption, and almost never has a healthy white infant...

Moore: You still need to consider the fact that these children come to us due to abuse and neglect situations and some of that may be in utero exposure. And I would say generally if we had a white infant come into care and we didn't know right off the bat that we were filing for permanent custody, it would go to a foster home. And I would say if that proceeded to a permanent custody, 9 times out of 10 those foster parents would indicate a desire to adopt. So we have very few infants or even young toddlers available for adoption.