It's Adoption Week in the UK, and with that information is pouring out around the country aimed at dispelling myths that may keep people from considering joining the ranks of adoptive parents.

The BBC is saying that adoption rights are 'misunderstood', and given the news that has come out of that country over the past months, that seems a bit of an understatement.

The present circumstance sees the British Association for Adoption and Fostering (BAAF) voicing concern of public perceptions of adoption revealed in a recent survey that leave many out of the loop.

Apparently, people in Britain have it in mind that to adopt you must be under 40 and not a single man. This, however, is not the case.

Unbelievably, fewer than a third of those surveyed understood that abuse and neglect are the most common reasons for children to become adoptable, with more than four in ten thinking the reason is that "birth parents had given up their child for adoption."

David Holmes of the BAAF, hopeful that a bit of education for the public will turn things around, says, "Without suitable adopters many children will continue to wait in care for far too long and some will never find a permanent and loving family of their own - something every child deserves."

All well and good, but may I direct attention to this story from Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom, about the frustration of having to wait more than four years to adopt a child. That is the average ... four years ... from the time a child comes into care until the completion of adoption.

Mr Elliot, whose daughter is now five, said: "While my wife and I found our own wait to adopt very frustrating, we're more concerned about the fact that our own daughter could have been adopted much sooner.

"It was evident from birth that adoption was the only viable way forward for her, yet it took two years for her to be placed with us.

"There's no excuse for delays like this and the health minister must act now to address this issue."

Much like National Adoption Month in the US, the official recognition of the value and worth of adoption, the plight of children, the numbers languishing, the consequences of serial placements, etc., Adoption Week in the UK is doing a good job of raising awareness on some aspects and levels, but the long-term good of such awareness-raising is bound to be negligible unless the systems touted are actually capable of doing the job described.

If members of the public are moved to consider adding a child to their family and comprehend the need for placements for children in temporary situations ... foster care, primarily ..., most would expect, going into the process, that it will be reasonable and that the professionals involved will be as caring and attentive as the hopeful parents need them to be.

How many will persevere if what they come across instead is a bureaucratic nightmare of red tape, overworked and jaded individuals, inconsistent demands and worse?

These specified times of "adoption awareness" should not only address the need for adoption, but the problems and issues within the processes of adoption. As it is, the acknowledgment seems as though it's not been very well thought out.

For example, it's all well and good to shout from the rooftops that single men over 40 can adopt from care in the UK, but if 45-year-old single men learn that nothing of the kind is likely to happen in their area and they'll be pushing 50 before anything might happen anyway, the whole idea rather loses its point.

I personally know a woman in the UK that was denied the opportunity to adopt because she was, "too fertile", meaning that the social worker in charge of her application thought only people with no possible option of ever producing biologically should be allowed to adopt.

At some point, governments are going to have to take a stand either in favor of or opposed to adoption; then accept responsibility for the consequences. Waffling around on shifting ground between 'family preservation' and children's rights while waving National Adoption Month/Day/Week banners is simply not helpful.

My vote? Adoption should never be easy, but it should be possible.