CAPRI calls for urgent reform of Jamaica’s adoption system

The call came during a recent presentation of CAPRI’s European Union-funded report, ‘Home Advantage: Reforming Jamaica’s Adoption System’, hosted by Naomi Reitzin-Palmer, programme administrator at CAPRI.

According to the report, approximately 4,500 children are currently in state care in Jamaica, with about 2,000 living in childcare facilities. Yet in most years, only between 10 and 20 wards of the state are adopted into non-kin families. Meanwhile, an estimated 100 to 250 approved adopters remain on waiting lists.

According to CAPRI Fellow Aieem Mahabir, who presented the findings, the problem is not a shortage of willing families.

“Adoption is not failing because people do not want to adopt,” Mahabir said. “It’s failing because the system is not designed to serve the best interest of the child or to connect children to families in a timely and purposeful way.”

He pointed to the example of newborns relinquished at birth who spend, on average, 15 months in children’s homes before being placed with families. The research stated that such delays are especially harmful during the first three years of life — a critical window for cognitive development, attachment, and emotional regulation.

“The longer a child remains in care, the lower the odds of adoption and the higher the developmental risk it poses to them,” Mahabir added.

Central to CAPRI’s critique is Jamaica’s Adoption Act, which dates back to 1958 and has never been revised. The legislation was modeled on a United Kingdom law that has since undergone multiple updates.

In contrast, the Child Care and Protection Act (CCPA), passed in 2004, governs broader child protection matters but makes no reference to adoption. The result, according to the report, is two parallel legal regimes operating without alignment.

Additionally, the report highlights that there is no statutory definition of abandonment, no clear legal triggers for dispensing with parental consent, and no defined timeline for when prolonged absence constitutes unreasonable withholding of consent.

Jamaica’s adoption law requires the consent of both parents, and Mahabir noted that the Child Protection and Family Services Agency (CPFSA) does not place children “until both parents have consented, or until the court dispenses with that consent — which almost never happens.”

As a result, children can remain in care for years while authorities attempt to locate absent parents.

Even where laws exist, implementation is slowed by limited capacity. Social workers face heavy caseloads, and key procedural steps are often delayed.

Mahabir cited the example of the fit person order (FPO), which under policy should be issued within 24 to 48 hours to legally designate a child as a ward of the state.

“In practice, it takes around three to six months for that initial document to get done,” he said. “So many children who could be adopted — they never reach the adoption board because the cases just do not move along.”

During the panel discussion, CAPRI’s Director of Research Diana Thorburn reflected on what she described as inconsistencies in how the “best interest of the child” principle is interpreted across institutions.

“I really came to have a much stronger appreciation of the best interest of the child principle — not the principle, but the fact that there is not a unified definition or understanding of it,” Thorburn said.

She questioned whether adoption should automatically be treated as a last resort.

“There is a notion of best interest that adoption should only be a last resort,” she said. “Whereas another understanding of best interest… is that the best interest of the child is a stable family, which might not necessarily be their biological family.”

Children's Advocate of Jamaica and National Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons, Diahann Gordon-Harrison emphasized the need for standardized triggers to move cases forward.

“The normalization of triggers that will help the system to move along… would be an important advancement,” she said.

Pointing to the disparity between the number of children in care and annual non-kin adoptions, she described the incongruence as “very telling”, adding that “it begs the question as to what are some of the systemic delays that are perhaps preventing children from being placed in families with some amount of permanence.”

Meanwhile, Gavin Goffe, an attorney at law and adoptive parent, shared his personal experience of waiting approximately six years in the system which led him to complete a private adoption.

“We would get a letter every year, saying, ‘We haven’t forgotten you, hang in there,’” Goffe said. “And it didn’t tell us where we were in the queue.”

He added that the report confirmed his experience was part of a broader systemic issue.

“To see how deeply it was entrenched in the system… and to see a clear plan as to how we can get to where we need to go is encouraging,” he said.

The report situates adoption within a wider policy context, arguing that timely permanent placement can improve educational outcomes, strengthen emotional development, and even serve as a violence prevention strategy.

Whether policymakers act on the recommendations may determine whether adoption in Jamaica remains a prolonged bureaucratic process — or evolves into what CAPRI describes as “a real community tool” for child protection and national development.