Are You Thinking About Summer Already?

Source: http://www.adoptioncouncil.org

By Erin Bayles and Sarah Alger

“The camps are a lot of fun for me because I grew up in a pretty small town where there was not a huge Asian population, so it was a very special experience to get together with so many other Asian kids who were also adopted.”
– Nora Burgess, reminiscing about her experiences at adoption culture camps

 

 

Introduction

After being adopted from China as an infant, Nora Burgess and her mother, Phebe, attended two different culture camps. When Nora was in preschool they attended a three-day camp in Maine, run by Families with Children from China, where they met other families with adopted children from China. Year later, they went to another camp held at a YMCA facility in Asheville, North Carolina. Nora recalled that the camps heightened her interest in Chinese culture, as “they covered so many different topics: dance, singing, calligraphy, traditional children’s games, cooking, speaking, etc.” One special memory stuck with her: the camp counselors would perform traditional Chinese stories and dances and encourage the children to join in. Her mother Phebe’s favorite memory was the closing ceremony, which included a Dragon parade and performances by the children.

Now twenty-one years old, Nora continues to learn about her Chinese heritage through her studies at college. Overall, she said, she was glad her mother went with her to the culture camps, as they offered extended resources on her birth culture and supplemented her family’s own exploration in a fun, memorable way.

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Adopted boys finally unite with their parents after painful 3-year wait

Source: www.today.com

By Alexandra Zaslow

After a three-year wait, Jennifer and James Grover's two sons are finally home.

The Utah family's lengthy journey began in 2012 when they first began the process of adopting Joseph, 14, and Bronson, 7, from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

And it capped off with an emotional meeting at Salt Lake City airport earlier this month, when the boys raced into their awaiting parents' arms.

"Until I was holding them, I didn't believe it," Jennifer Grover said. "We've already been through the adoption process three times before, but this one sent us on an emotional roller coaster."

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Catapult’s ADOPTED Essay Series

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Meet 4 Pro-Life Lawmakers Who Chose to Adopt by Philip Wegmann

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Source: www.dailysignal.com

By Philip Wegmann

Markwayne Mullins’ R-Okla,  advice is always the same: “If it’s crossed your mind, then there’s something that’s been put on your heart, then you need to actively pursue that. Until you know for a fact the door is closed. Otherwise that nagging is never going to go away.”

New Bill Aims to Ban Unregulated Child Custody Transfers: A Process Known As ‘Re-homing’ by Allie Morris

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Source: http://www.concordmonitor.com

By Allie Morris

“A report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office found parents who adopt children with severe behavioral needs and have difficulty finding services to help them adjust could lead them to seek unregulated child transfers. At the national level, little is known about the prevalence of the transfers, the report found.”

This is a crisis Hopscotch feels passionately about, with the growing number of older child placements, in large part due to the foreign sending countries’ (or our own broken foster care system) delayed permanency planning.  Foreign countries are often woefully under staffed, have little to no resources for carrying out the basic responsibilities in preparing the required documentation for the child to be legally adoptable, made known as eligible for adoption and matching in the child’s best interest to a suitable family.  In our experience, a country could have thousands of children in care (orphanage and foster) and perhaps 1-2 persons devoted to identifying eligible children, collecting medical, social reports, securing the consents and relinquishments of guardians, gathering police records in the case of abuse or abandonment, processing the case through the courts, presenting a file to a prospective family or agency – it’s a no win situation for children.

The children continue to wait and wait and wait…. Growing older by the minute and exposed to more detrimental lack of care that only a prepared and loving permanent family can give a child.  The longer a child waits in care, the greater the negative impact on a child’s global development.

The implementation of the Hague Intercountry Adoption Treaty (which places the same standard of case management, is required of all intercountry placements; Hague convention, non-convention or kinship)  has instituted a required minimum of 10 hours in adoption specific parent training.

Hopscotch has a 35 hour curriculum, which can be customized for a specific child and family’s needs.  Soon, Hopscotch will be integrating two pre-paid attachment coach teleconference sessions, with no additional charge for accessing the ‘coach’ for a 30 day period after the phone sessions.  There after the family would be able to secure additional phone coaching, at a nominal fee.

The additional coaching would be to support a family in finding local resources to continue direct care or just have the support of a coach for a healthy family in the most vulnerable time of an adoptive family’s transition.

In addition, we are consistently sending educational articles and free resource notices by email, posting on our social media and private client list serves.  We would urge families to take advantage of every resource and most of all – CALL YOUR AGENCY if you are struggling.  We want to hear from you before you get to the point of a crisis and feel you have no option than to dissolve your adoption.  No one is looking for sunshine and lemonade post adoption reports – we know adoption is messy – life is messy and want to help rather than hear about it after the fact.   

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'Gotcha Day,' Meeting Your Adopted Child by Michael Hicks

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/patrick-hicks/gotcha-day-meeting-your-adopted-child_b_7102480.html

By Patrick Hicks

On the eve of his son's adoption from South Korea, one writer looks back on what that night now means

Most parents go to a hospital to meet their child for the first time. My wife and I went to the Omaha airport, and it was there, shortly before midnight, that our internationally-adopted son arrived from South Korea. He was 51 weeks old.

It was a joyful and overwhelming moment for us, but for him, it was obviously terrifying. Who were these people? Where was his foster mother? Why was a stranger holding him and where was he being taken? Everything he knew was gone. Missing. Even now, five years later, if I close my eyes, I can still hear his shrieks of terror.

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