‘It shouldn’t just be these kinds of sunshine stories’: social workers’ discussion of ‘past difficulties’ as a key theme in adoption assessment interviews

Abstract

According to the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption, the receiving state must determine that prospective parents are suited to adopt, and it is up to each State Party to identify the criteria and methods by which suitability is determined. The present study focuses on social workers’ accounts of the assessment practice, and offers insight into the complexity of the assessment task as well as what is expected and required of adoption applicants. More precisely, it explores why talking about past difficulties and crises is considered to be crucial when assessing prospective adoptive parents. The analysis of social workers’ discussions of their work demonstrates how ‘talking about difficulties’ in assessment interviews serves two primary institutional purposes, as it relates to both the examination of suitability for parenthood and the credibility of the assessment per se. Furthermore, the study points to how social workers’ professional discourse on the significance of past experiences holds and reproduces the ideal of a reflective confessing subject, the hallmark of a therapeutic culture.