# COMAR Title 07 — Department of Human Services

## Subtitle 05 — Social Services Administration—Private Child Placement Agencies

### Chapter 03 — Private Adoption

#### Regulation .01 Purpose.

*COMAR 07.05.03.01*

The purpose of private adoption services is to:

A. Effect a permanent plan through private legal adoption as quickly as possible for a child in out-of-home placement who cannot, or should not, be reunited with the child's birth parents;

B. Protect children from unnecessary separation from birth parents;

C. Provide the child with an adoptive setting which will ensure the child's safety and well-being;

D. Assure adoption of a child by qualified individuals;

E. Protect the confidentiality of the adoption process;

F. Arrange, as appropriate, the exchange of identifying information among an adoptee, birth parents, and birth siblings who register their consent with the Registry;

G. Assure that a child adopted in a foreign country is protected in Maryland and that the foreign country's laws, customs, expectations, and requests are, as far as is legally and practically possible, honored in Maryland; and

H. Assure potential adoptive parents that the agency will:

  (1) Share with them all available appropriate information, and

  (2) Minimize financial and personal risks.