{"id":86717,"date":"2025-08-22T05:20:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T05:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/86717\/"},"modified":"2025-08-22T05:20:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T05:20:08","slug":"millie-bobby-brown-has-adopted-a-baby-girl-heres-how-adoption-works-in-the-us-and-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/86717\/","title":{"rendered":"Millie Bobby Brown has adopted a baby girl. Here’s how adoption works in the US and Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Actor Millie Bobby Brown and husband Jake Bongiovi have announced they have become parents after adopting a “sweet baby girl”.<\/p>\n

In a statement on social media, the couple said they were “beyond excited” to enter the next chapter of their lives.<\/p>\n

Brown, 21, and Bongiovi, 23, were married in a private ceremony in May last year.<\/p>\n

The Bongiovis didn’t offer further details about how their daughter was adopted.<\/p>\n

However, adoption is far more common in the United States than Australia.<\/p>\n

Loading Instagram content<\/p>\n

How many children are adopted in Australia and the US?<\/p>\n

In 2023-24, 207 adoptions were finalised<\/a> in Australia.<\/p>\n

Of these:<\/p>\n

26 were local adoptions: The adoption of children not known to their adoptive parents147 were known adoptions: The child is already known to their adoptive parents (think foster carers or relatives)34 were inter-country adoption: The adoption of children from overseas<\/p>\n

According to the National Council for Adoption, an estimated 80,598 children were adopted in the US in 2022.<\/p>\n

This excludes step-parent adoptions.<\/p>\n

Of those, 32 per cent were private domestic adoptions, 66 per cent were adoptions from foster care and 2 per cent were inter-country adoptions.<\/p>\n

In 2023, there were 343,077 children in foster care in the US. Of those, almost 51,000 were adopted.<\/p>\n

That’s compared to around 46,200 children in foster care in Australia in 2020-21, which is the latest data set available.<\/p>\n

Australian adoption rates falling<\/p>\n

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) says the number of adoptions has been declining over the years.<\/p>\n

In 1971\u201372, almost 10,000 children were adopted in Australia in what has been known as the forced-adoption era.<\/p>\n

Compared with 1971\u201372, the number of adoptions in 2023\u201324 has fallen by 98 per cent.<\/p>\n

After open-adoption legislation was introduced in the 1980s and 1990s, domestic adoption numbers fell substantially.<\/p>\n

Inter-country adoption has also decreased since the 1990s because of the processing time and ethical concerns<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Why is it hard to adopt a child in Australia?<\/p>\n

In 2019, ABC reporter Yasmin Jeffery spoke<\/a> to Barnardos Australia’s head of adoptions, Kay Berry, who said it was a very “involved” process.<\/p>\n

“It can be quite an exposing thing because many people get to hear more about your lives than would normally be shared,” Ms Berry said.<\/p>\n

Exactly how “involved” the process is depends on the pathway and adoption type you’re considering.<\/p>\n

But according to Adopt Change<\/a>, the steps for all types of adoption and permanent care will generally look something like this:<\/p>\n

Contacting the relevant state department or accredited agencyAttending an information sessionUndertaking assessment and trainingWaiting for matchingPlacementPost-adoptive\/placement supportAdoption is approved by the court in your jurisdiction<\/p>\n

The question of how long it takes to adopt is another barrier.<\/p>\n

The median wait time for inter-country adoption is three and a half years.<\/p>\n

Whereas the median wait time for adopting a locally-born child is around two years.<\/p>\n

\"Child<\/p>\n

Adoption numbers in Australia have been declining since the 1970s. (Supplied: Pexels)<\/p>\n

Who can adopt?<\/p>\n

The laws and requirements around adoption and who’s allowed to adopt vary across Australia.<\/p>\n

If you’d like specific information tailored to your state or territory, check out the relevant government websites below:<\/p>\n

Generally speaking, a prospective adoptive parent needs to be an adult who is available and able to provide for the child until they turn 18.<\/p>\n

This means they need to be in reasonable health, and must undergo police and working-with-children checks.<\/p>\n

But if you’re looking at inter-country adoptions, age limits for prospective adoptive parents vary, depending on the country you’re looking to adopt from.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Actor Millie Bobby Brown and husband Jake Bongiovi have announced they have become parents after adopting a “sweet…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86718,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[8571,64749,64748,64,63,447,134,64750,64751,64746,24364,64747],"class_list":["post-86717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-adoption","tag-adoption-in-australia","tag-adoption-us","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-how-many-children-are-adopted-in-australia","tag-is-it-hard-to-adopt-in-australia","tag-jake-bongiovi","tag-millie-bobby-brown","tag-millie-bobby-brown-adoption"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}