14 DAY TRIAL // As the holidays are approaching, adoption agencies all over the world are desperately trying to find homes for the orphan children in need of a Christmas miracle. One particular agency resorted to advertising two children in local newspapers as a last solution.
Adoptionplus placed a full-page advert in three Cambridgeshire newspapers stating that they are looking for loving families for two little boys, 4-year-old Liam and 3-year-old Kevin. As a real advertising campaign, the ad promotes the adoption process for having “no cost,” “no waiting time,” and “no hoops to jump through,” according to Daily Mail.
“You don't have to have had children; you don't need to be in a relationship; you don't need to be heterosexual; you don't need to be young and you don't need to be perfect...You just need to really want to make a difference in a child's life,” the advert says.
They believed that finding a new and creative way of promoting the service, the agency may make people more willing to adopt a child.
At the sight of the children being advertised like products, people started slamming the center and accusing them on inappropriate campaigns.
Joanne Alper, service director at Adoptionplus, defended the ad as being imaginative and encouraging, stating the fact that with the number of children without parents reaching 4,000, adoption agencies must make changes in order to adapt.
“It is very easy when you just switch on the news and they say “blah blah blah” but this kind of thing makes it seem more real. We just hope this could inspire interest. We try to get rid of myths […] there are so many children in the UK that need a home [it] is desperately sad and we want to do everything we can,” the service director told Daily Mail.
The ones opposing this kind of adoption advertising consider this message to attract unsafe environments for the children, making them look vulnerable as the agencies desperate enough to hand them off to everyone who will take them. But the center's staff considers the ad to be an example of “forward thinking” that was carefully considered not to endanger the children.