The Coalition for Adoption Registry Ethics (CARE) was created because of the need for standardization of policies and procedures of online reunion registries. They are concerned with the practices of some online reunion registries, such as selling information that was previously promised to be confidential.

The situation above is just one example of a exploitation of the online search community. CARE’s goal is to provide a way for the online searching adoption community to safely search for birth relatives online without being exploited for profit.

The CARE board consists of several board members that are well known in the adoption community such as Ann Babb, Shea Grimm, and Damsel Plum to name a few.

Ann Babb is the author of “Ethics in American Adoption” and “Adopting and Advocating for the Special Needs Child” She is the mother of 12 children including 6 adopted with special needs and all of either trans racial or internationally. She is also a representative for the North American Council on Adoptable Children in Oklahoma and the Executive Director of The Family Tree Adoption Advocacy Center as well as a past president of the American Adoption Congress.

Shea Grimm is the author of An Adoptee’s Right to know, co founder and former legislative chair of Bastard Nation. Shea is a reunited adoptee of Native American ancestry.

Damsel Plum is a co-founder of Bastard Nation and the founder and ring mistress of the Adoption Ring, and the former Director and Outreach Director of the Adoption Registration Coalition which administers the annual Reg Day event. Damsel Plum is also a reunited adoptee.

CARE has been achieving it’s goals by setting and uphold ethical standards for the operation of free online reunion registries, promoting registries that conform to these standards and promoting awareness of the International Soundex Reunion Registry.

It is the online registries that adhere to the criteria and who are primarily devoted to acting as a registry and operate consistently within the standards set by CARE are endorsed sites of CARE.

To view the registries that have been cared endorsed as of May 2006 visit http://www.plumsite.com/care/regist.htm To visit the CARE web ring visit http://j.webring.com/hub?ring=carereg