The study identified the challenges facing adoption of children among families in Abia State, Nigeria.
Survey research design was adopted for the study. Three research questions guided the study. The population for
the study comprised two main groups of respondents-the adoptive parents and the social welfare officers. Ninety
subjects were purposively selected from the study area and studied. A structured questionnaire was employed for
data collection. The data collected were analyzed using mean and percentages. The findings of the study revealed
that the major reasons couples choose to go into adoption are childlessness, demand for a particular gender of a
child, and to have someone inherit the wealth of the couple when they die. It was also revealed that adoption of
child/children into families poses challenges/problems for both the adopted child and the adoptive parents. For
instance, some adopted children face the challenges of acquiring a sense of belonging and the adoptive parents also
face the challenges of adopting a child who may develop one form of deformity, or abnormal/undesirable
behaviours later in life among others. The findings also identified some actions that could be taken to help handle
some of the challenges of adoption which among others include making every effort to keep the adopted children
in kinship community settings; child welfare workers ensuring the positive developmental health of children kept
under their custody and collaboration between professionals and adopting foster practices that encourage the
healthy development of children in the custody of the foster homes/orphanages. The following recommendations
were made: Giving proper orientation/counseling to the adoptive parents, subjection of every child in the
orphanage homes for thorough medical examination. Social welfare officials should counsel the adoptive parents
to equip them to handle challenges of adopting children into families.