Aaron Lazare, M.D.
Founding Executive Director, The Office of Foster Care and Adoption Education and Policy, formerly known as the Center for Adoption Research; Celia and Isaac Haidak Professor in Medical Education and professor of Psychiatry; Former Chancellor and Dean,
University of Massachusetts, School of Medicine

In 1995, in the wake of the fatal abortion clinic shootings in Brookline, Massachusetts, Governor William Weld asked me to chair a citizens' task force on adoption. As a physician, head of a major medical school, and the adoptive parent of eight children, I thought I knew a lot about adoption. But, as I contemplated the state of adoption in Massachusetts, I quickly realized that there were more questions than answers on how to promote adoption. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has always been a leader in creating progressive foster care and adoption policy. It was the first state to codify adoption legally in statute. Massachusetts legislators were the first to recognize that orphanages were not the place for children to grow up, and so they created the first family based foster care system in the country. In the last hundred years, however, the state of adoption and foster care in the Commonwealth, and around the country has changed dramatically. After heading the Citizens' Task Force on Adoption for Governor Weld, I reached the inevitable conclusion that no one knows enough about adoption in our society today.

Few professional schools — medical, social work, legal, or education — teach anything about adoption in their curricula. While the numbers of healthy infant adoptions have fallen dramatically, almost nothing is known about the decision-making process women might go through to consider making an adoption plan for an unplanned pregnancy. While thousands of children are legally free for adoption in this country's foster care system, almost nothing is known about what provides true incentives to families who might be willing to adopt older children. And, as the numbers of international adoptions to the U.S. increase, it has become apparent that there are issues related to these adoptions that must be examined to ensure success for everyone involved.

All of these factors led me to suggest to Governor Weld that we establish the first — and still the only — academic institution, in the United States, and perhaps in the world exclusively dedicated to the study of adoption and foster care.

Over the years, the Office of Foster Care and Adoption Education and Policy has grown to serve as a resource for policy makers in and outside the commonwealth. Providing technical assistance to public and private agencies and consumers of adoption services, the Office has more than fulfilled our original vision. The Office's information, analysis, and commentary has informed policy makers from Beacon Hill to the White House and beyond.