adoption

The Imprint was fortunate to feature dozens of perspectives and analyses in our Opinion section this year. The following is a selection not necessarily of the best 10 pieces from 2025, but strong work that captures the breadth of topics within child welfare and youth justice that were written by Imprint columnists this year.

She didn’t adopt me because she wanted me. She adopted me because it made her look good, writes Lexie Lee.

Private foster care and adoption agencies in Texas are brokering contracts for moms to turn over their children in a murky legal world, spawning protracted civil custody battles.

Four months after The Imprint asked for data on adoptees sent out of state for residential care, officials abruptly halted the practice.

Georgia is now allowing adoptees over the age of 18 who were born in the state to secure copies of their original birth certificates.

California's AB 1195 gives incarcerated parents a fighting chance and children the right to know their parents didn’t abandon them.

Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) have reintroduced a pair of bills that would fund pre- and post-adoption services and help states avoid the rehoming of adopted children. 

Researchers are documenting the experiences of American Indian and Alaska Native women whose children were adopted or placed in foster care.