Prospective adoptive parents who take part in a Dutch adoption assessment procedure are asked to write down their life stories. In this article we examine how information from the life stories is deleted, selected and transformed into a topic to talk about in an assessment interview and/or to write about in a recommendation record. We have shown in a detailed analysis how prospective adoptive parents demonstrate themselves to be “normal people” with “normal childhoods” and how life events are selected from the life stories as a means to assess the coping qualities of the prospective adoptive parents. We could conclude that social workers in the recommendation record: 1) turn statements made by the parents into facts; 2) leave statements in the parents' own words, and that they 3) assess suspicions of possible risk factors in the interview but omit them from the record. By using conversation analysis as a method we could gain an insight into the dynamics of assessment, making visible exactly how social workers collect information about people's background to arrive at a decision about whether the candidates are suitable adoptive parents.
This thesis is on institutional communication, and focuses in particular on interactional processes between social workers and prospective adoptive parents in assessment procedures for adoptive parenthood. These assessments are conducted in the Netherlands by the Child Protection Board (hereafter CPB). In order to make recommendations about the suitability of prospective adoptive parents, the CPB is tasked with assessing ‘possible risk and protection factors that might hinder a stable development of the adoptive child towards adulthood’ (CPB, 2001: 62). The assessment procedure includes a health check, whether or not the candidates have a criminal record, written life stories of the prospective adoptive parents and four interviews conducted by a social worker from the CPB. The procedure concludes with a formal record, including a recommendation, that is sent to the Dutch state agency. This thesis concentrates on institutional assessments of adoptive parenthood procedures through text and talk: on assessment in action. It includes an analysis of the interviews related to the life stories of the prospective adoptive parents and the reproduction of both in the recommendation record.
In this study we examine how suitability for adoptive parenthood is assessed and displayed in interactions between social workers and prospective adoptive parents. In particular, we have analyzed relationship questions that are put to couples with and without an observation from the social worker. The answers are featured as very precise, stressing the positive aspects of the relationship but avoiding sainthood, and accompanied with examples that illustrate the stability of the relationship. We concluded that it is not only ‘‘what’’ couples answer but also ‘‘how’’ they answer that is taken into account in the assessment. That is why ‘‘being able to finish o¤ each other’s sentences when giving an answer’’ and ‘‘having the ability to reflect on the relationship’’ is considered to be a protective factor for adoptive parenthood.
