International: International adoptions face challenges during pandemic (Includes video)
KARE – August 23, 2021
Heidi Wiste, as the senior director of adoption at Children’s Home Society and Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota, has been helping families for more than two decades. “We hopefully are preparing families from the very start that what you need during this whole process COVID or not is flexibility,” Wiste said. But the pandemic, as it did for so many parts of our lives, seeped into international adoptions as well. To put it into perspective, Wiste said the “peak” of international adoptions happened in 2004, with about 23,000 kids placed in the U.S. “In 2019, that number was 2,971 and in 2020, that number was 1,622 so overall, a 93% decline in international adoption placements,” Wiste explained. “And in one year driven by COVID, a 45% decline.”
https://www.kare11.com/article/news/local/breaking-the-news/international-adoptions-face-challenge-during-pandemic/89-f18b9b08-32ab-4a25-81fc-7b63d87f7804