The Contextual Adoption Framework (CAF)
A holistic lens for understanding adoption by examining both the micro-level experiences and the macro-level forces that shape adoption across the lifespan.
"The Contextual Adoption Framework is designed to offer an accessible way to understand adoption as a cultural and legal construct, beyond the personal act. It helps individuals, families, practitioners, and organisations develop a clearer, more informed perspective on how wider forces might shape adoption experiences.
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As an adoptee, it represents the map I once wished I had, a guide born from years of interdisciplinary research, reflection, and learning. It brings together insights from psychology, sociology, history, child protection, and lived experience to offer a more nuanced and compassionate understanding of adoption in its wider context."
Dounya Chennah
About The Framework
​The Contextual Adoption Framework (CAF) comprises six surrounding contextual components (the macro forces ) that influence the Individual Context at its centre (the micro lived experience of adoption). The CAF is a crucial research tool to get a stronger sense of factors outside the individual control of the adoption triad (the adoptee - the adoptive family - the birth mother) that might impact adoption experiences and mental health outcomes.
CAF Seven Factors
Individual Context
The personal and developmental dimension of adoption.This includes the adoptee’s unique adoption story, the known circumstances of their early life, and the experiences lived before, during, and after adoption. It recognises that adoption is a lifelong process shaped by the different stages of human development, and influenced continuously by the surrounding contexts.
Family Context
The family context includes the emotional environment, relationships, and day-to-day dynamics that shape a child’s sense of safety, connection, and belonging. It also encompasses the wider constellation of families involved in adoption birth, adoptive, and blended and the ways their stories, histories, and relationships intersect across the lifespan.
Social & Community Context
The environments in which adoptees and families live, learn, and grow. Schools, peers, community attitudes, available support networks, experiences of stigma or inclusion, and the everyday social settings that shape how adoption is understood and integrated into life.
Cultural Context
The cultural components that influence identity, meaning, and belonging. This includes language, traditions, heritage, religion, race, ethnicity and the cultural narratives that shape how families form and how adoption is perceived and lived.
Legal & Policy Context
The systems, laws, and institutional frameworks surrounding adoption.
Child protection systems, adoption laws, welfare policies, access to records, citizenship and identity rights, legal processes, and the institutional practices that either support or hinder the wellbeing of the adoption triad.
Historical Context
The historical forces that shape today’s adoption practices and narratives. Legacies of institutionalisation, political transitions, migration patterns, colonial histories and past policies that inform the systems, stories, and identities experienced by today’s adoptees and families.
Ethical Context
The moral and rights-based considerations that shape adoption practices. This includes international adoption ethics, informed consent, transparency, coercion, trafficking risks, economic inequalities, power dynamics, and the child’s right to family, identity, and protection. It evaluates whether systems and practices align with human rights and child protection standards.