A Dec. 22 article by Kathy Kirby of thestarpress.com featured an Indiana couple who have provided loving homes to special need children with serious medical concerns:

Foster parents of medically fragile children with special needs, the Anderson couple gave these three boys a permanent home in the past three years with the help of KidsPeace Foster Care and Family Services, a foster care agency serving Delaware, Madison, Jay, Randolph, Blackford, Henry and Grant counties.

"Not many people want to take on the care of special needs children," Terry said. "Love and care is what they need. We have a gift to do just that."

Jeramiah has physical ailments from being born prematurely. Brandon has a metabolic disorder. And Elijah is still recuperating from injuries he suffered from a self-afflicted gunshot wound after he had found a gun under his birth father's bed. At one time, he couldn't hold up his head or talk.

Any day now, the couple expect the adoption to be finalized of yet another foster son, whom they have affectionately nicknamed Angel.

Labels: special_needs

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As concerns over international adoption processes continue to mount, a couple from Minnesota appears to be the latest victim of adoption fraud. According to an article in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune, the couple adopted two children from India, who they were told were 11- and 12-years old.

Within months of their arrival, and before the adoption became final, Komal confessed: She was 21. Her younger sister, Shallu, admitted she was 15, not 11 as advertised.

The sisters said they were told to lie about their ages and backgrounds by orphanage officials and an India-based representative for Crossroads Adoption Services of Edina, which handled the failed placements.

At 21, Komal wasn't even eligible for adoption. Last year, the girls were deported for adoption fraud, and were sent back to India. The Minnesota couple is now suing Crossroads adoption agency for fraud and negligence.

Labels: adoption fraud

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The number of foreign children adopted by Americans fell to a 15-year low, according to the U.S. State Department.

"Big declines were recorded for all three countries that provided the most adopted children in the previous fiscal year. In China and Russia, government officials have been trying to promote domestic adoptions, while in Guatemala, a once-bustling but highly corrupt international adoption industry was shut down while reforms are implemented." [Source: The Associated Press]

Thomas DiFilipo, president of the Joint Council on International Children's Services predicted that adoptions in 2010 would fall as well.

Labels: international

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The authors of a report that has been billed as the most extensive national data ever collected on adopted children and their families in the United States have concluded that most adopted are doing pretty good.

A Nov. 30 article by Joseph Shapiro of NPR provided the following insights into the report:

The vast majority of adopted children are in good health and fare well on measures of social and emotional well being. Eighty-five percent of them are reported by their parents to be in excellent or very good health. And 88 percent of adopted children age 6 and older show positive social behaviors.

That's contrary to the "negative stories that capture media attention," about adoption, says the study's co-author, Sharon Vandivere, a researcher for Child Trends, a nonpartisan Washington research group.

Called "Adoption USA," the report was written by researchers at Child Trends and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It was based on questions in the first-ever National Survey of Adoptive Parents, a federal survey of 2,000 families that had adopted children through foster care, private domestic adoption or international adoption.

Labels: research, welfare, health

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Australians who have been waiting to adopt children from Ethiopia have received devastating news that the Australian government is suspending the program.

A Dec. 9 article by Barbara Miller of Australia's ABC News provided the following details:

The Federal Attorney-General has put the adoption program on hold because of concerns over a request from Ethiopia that Australia enter into a formal aid agreement as part of the arrangement.

Adoption agencies and prospective parents say they and hundreds of children have been left in limbo for no good reason and they are calling for the suspension to be lifted.

In the past 10 years more than 450 Ethiopian children have been adopted to Australia and many more families are interested in adopting an Ethiopian child. ...

Teacher Alex Grieve and her husband Rod have been going through the adoption program for six years. About 16 months ago their application was finally sent to Ethiopia to be matched with a child.

But then came the news that the Australian Government had suspended the adoption program. ...

Ms Grieve says she is devastated by the news.

"It's been pretty crushing, pretty hard. This is our only option to become parents," she said.

Labels: international, australia, ethiopia

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By all accounts, Terri Smith and Brad Roback's Chicago-area home looks normal enough; a barking dog, an 18-month-old toddler (named Sachi), family portraits and organized chaos. But closer inspection reveals a key difference between this and many other households  a cluster of syringes and bottles on the kitchen counter.

Sachi, who is just under two years old, is HIV positive. She contracted the virus from her birth mother, a sex worker in India.

Writer Leslie Goldman wrote about Sachi's adoptive family -- and the plight of the many other HIV+ children who are still waiting for families of their own -- in a Dec. 1 Huffington Post article:

Families like Brad, Terri, and Sachi are helping to bring about that much-needed transformation. They're part of a small but growing group of would-be parents looking to bring a child into their homes and lives. Coupled with the increasing manageability of HIV in areas with access to medical care, children like Sachi are finding homes ... and thriving.

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing them for a story in Parenting magazine, "An HIV Adoption Story" (December 2009 issue.) While no hard numbers exist for HIV adoption, the field is growing by "leaps and bounds," Erin Henderson, the coordinator for HIV-positive kids at Adoption Advocates International in Port Angeles, WA, told me.

In 2005, AAI helped two HIV-positive Ethiopian children come to the U.S.; in October 2009, the agency had 45 such adoptions in process or completed.

Labels: international, HIV

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An effort is underway in West Virginia to form a statewide support and advocacy group for foster parents. Charleston Gazette staff writer Susan Williams described the effort in a Dec. 4 article:

Rachel Probst, support specialist for Mission West Virginia, said West Virginia has no active group that encompasses the entire state. & "First of all, we want to improve the quality of life for children in foster care. But foster parents and adoptive parents also need a collective voice." &

Although Probst works for Mission West Virginia, she said the new foster parent group will be independent of her organization.

"We want to be a central resource for parents," Probst said. "We want to educate people about the role of foster parents, and we want to be a support group for them and for adoptive parents.

For more information about the new group call 866-225-5698.

Labels: foster care, foster parents, awareness, support, west virginia

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A Kentucky couples adoption of a Nepalese infant has prompted some discussion about the risks and benefits of domestic and international adoptions.

According to a Dec. 4 article on the website iSurfHopkins.com, the couple chose to adopt internationally because they were worried about the risks associated with domestic adoption:

According to Tara Whitmer, the couple has spent a considerable amount of time attempting to find local adoption possibilities, but discovered in many local private adoptions there were no guarantees. The Whitmers were concerned that there might be a chance that the estranged parents of orphaned children would come back and attempt to regain custody. The uncertainty of the possibilities frightened the couple.

iSurf news contacted Jenny Morin of the Department of Community Based Services (DCBS) in Hopkins County concerning the risks of adoption. Mrs. Morin stated that she understood the Whitmer's concerns regarding adoption, but for the birth-parents to simply change their minds was not sufficient reason for any Kentucky court to appeal and adoption.

"There are truly no guarantees," said Morin. "Three out of four private adoptions fall through because the birth parents change their minds at the last minute, prior to termination of parental rights. Once an adoption is finalized, however, it his highly unlikely that the decision will be overturned."

Labels: international, adoptive parents, kentucky

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A Vermont adoption agency is using Skype, an Internet-based communication program, to complete an out-of-state adoption.

A Dec. 7 article on the website boston.com provided the following details about the innovative effort:

The Lund Family Center will use Skype computer software, which will allow the out-of-state family and child to participate in the legal proceeding through a Web cam.

A judge will preside over the event on Monday from St. Albans while the child, family and relatives participate from their home, out-of-state.

The nine-year-old girl, who was in foster care in Vermont for two years, already has been placed with the family. But they thought it could have been traumatic for her to return to Vermont so officials set up the Internet adoption.

Labels: adoption_agencies, technology, internet

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Adoption proceedings in Michigan, which are typically closed to the public, were opened for one week in honor of National Adoption Day. Across Michigan, more than thirty counties took unique steps to mark this important day.

According to a Nov. 25 article by Kathryn Prater of the Lansing State Journal, this year's Adoption Day events were a time to celebrate successes as well as re-focus on the challenges that remain:

More than 2,700 children were adopted through the Michigan Department of Human Services and private adoption agencies during the fiscal year 2009, which ended Sept. 30, according to the department. That's up almost 10 percent from 2003, when about 2,470 children were adopted, it said.

More than 16,600 Michigan children and teenagers are in foster care for various reasons and lengths of time, [said Gisgie Davila Gendreau of the Michigan Department of Human Services]. About 3,800 of those children are able to be adopted, she said.

"We're building awareness and reminding people that they don't have to be perfect to be a perfect parent - you just have to be willing to open your home to a child," she said. "There are children waiting for a 'forever family,' and we hope that they will consider fostering or adopting a child."

Labels: foster care, adoption costs, milestones, michigan

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Children in central Ohio have a strong advocate in Laura Barrington.

Barrington is the coordinator for Ross County Childrens Services, and according to an article in the Nov. 25 edition of the Chillicothe Gazette, she is working hard to match children in foster care with adoptive parents, ideally in time for the holidays:

One of the challenges for those working in fields dealing with adoption, she said, is finding placement for older children. Typically, infants and younger children are adopted more quickly than older ones.

"Some people have this idea of older children, that they are troubled youth, and that's not true," she said.

Another misconception is that a person has to be wealthy in order to adopt, she said.

Barrington said many of the older children go off to college and don't even have a home to return to on breaks or over the holidays. Those children, even though they are on the verge of full adulthood, need that family structure as well, she said.

"Every child is adoptable," Barrington said.

Labels: foster care, adoptive parents, ohio

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National Adoption Month may be over for another year, but that doesn't mean that the need for adoptive parents has subsided.

A Nov. 29 article in the Sikeston Standard Democrat called attention to the many children in Missouri who are still waiting for parents to call their own:

"We need to spread awareness there are children who currently need to be adopted," said Brenda Miller, adoption specialist for the 33rd Judicial Circuit, which includes Scott and Mississippi counties. "In Missouri, we have approximately 1,600 children available for adoption."

Miller spoke of the need to have adoptive parents in all areas of the state.

"We try to keep (the children) as close to their natural home and surroundings as possible," she said. "Any child that has been removed from their home has already experienced a loss from their parent, so we try to prevent a loss from their community, too."

Labels: missouri, adoptees

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