الأسر البديلة في مدينة جدة

Abstract EN

This study seeks to identify the reality of alternative families, the challenges they face, and the role played by social institutions with these families.

The study sample consisted of (7) alternative families, used the case study method, and used the corresponding tool as a means of data collection.

The results showed that the most prominent factor that drives some families to adoption is: the inability to have children and the most important strategy they use to cope with adoption is to adopt infants.

With regard to the challenges facing families, we found that the most important challenge is the difficulty of telling the child that s/he is not the biological son/daughter of the family.

The most important problem that families face with regulations and the concerned official bodies is the delay in extracting the identification documents for the child.

This is added to the weakness or lack of follow-up, by the competent authorities, of the alternative family or of the adopted child.

As for the assistance offered to these families by official authorities, it is limited to financial help only.