About NCFA : About Us : History
History
Thanks to the generous support of its donors and the efforts of thousands of volunteers, the National Council For Adoption (NCFA), originally the National Committee For Adoption has had a role in a number of policy changes and other actions since it was founded in 1980. It is widely acknowledged that without NCFA, adoption would be very different today.
NCFA is a non-profit, non-sectarian organization, which helps to create and support sound, ethical adoption services. As part of its education efforts, NCFA works to promote a positive image of adoption as a loving way to build permanent, happy families. NCFA provides direct information and guidance to thousands of individuals who can benefit from adoption.
Over the course of its twenty-plus year history, NCFA has been the champion and voice for adoption, called on by policy makers to help craft adoption policies to benefit children and families. NCFA monitors national and state legislation, supports efforts that will encourage and facilitate adoption, and addresses the policies and laws that form barriers to children getting the permanent families they need.
NCFA has members in all 50 states, as well as several other countries, and works with community based agencies, national groups and individuals, to find families for any child in need, regardless of whether the child is an infant or older, or has physical, mental, or emotional challenges, or is from another country. NCFA collaborates with its adoption agency members all across the country to serve the best interests of children by advancing sound, ethical adoption policies and practices.
Led by NCFA’s founding president for 20 years, Dr. William L. Pierce, and by founder Ruby Lee Piester, then executive director of what is now the Gladney Center for Adoption, NCFA started out with a very focused mission. It was to educate America about a draft 'Model State Adoption Act' that had been produced by an Advisory Panel of the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW). That 'Model Act' would have dramatically changed the nature of adoption in the US by recommending to the states a number of changes in adoption policy and practice.
Four of the most controversial aspects of the Model Act were:
- Confidential, sealed adoption records would have been opened retroactively.
- Unmarried men would have been given even more power to block women from making adoption plans for their children.
- Pre-placement home studies, the minimum to be sure children will be placed in safe homes, would not have been required for all adoptions.
- Against the advice of the American Academy of Pediatrics, among others, the minimum time for babies to wait in 'limbo' before their mothers could sign adoption papers was to be stretched out to two weeks.
HEW (later HHS, Department of Health and Human Services) published the Draft Model State Adoption Act in February 15, 1980, in the Federal Register for comments. Despite strong opposition from the public, everything seemed lined up for the Model Act to be pushed through.
That is when NCFA formally came into being. There was a general agreement among many adoption agencies and national organizations that existing organizations were unable and unwilling to take on the adoption controversies presented by the Draft Model Act.
So in 1980, a group of concerned adoption agency representatives and individuals met at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport and voted to charter what was then called the National Committee For Adoption (since changed to Council). A shoestring budget was put together to get NCFA launched. NCFA worked closely with HHS to ensure the revised Model Act would truly advance the cause of finding families for children with special needs. And NCFA began to grow in size and influence.
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