Adoption: No More Waiting Children?

What if RainbowKids could no longer show you the faces of children who are waiting for families?

What if one person, with all the power, believed that families interested in adopting should not be allowed to view children who are legally available for adoption?

Couched in legalese,with the invention of a new term called "soft referrals", that is exactly what is being proposed by the person heading the Office of Children’s Issues at the US Dept of State.  The idea is that no family without a homestudy should be allowed to receive information on a legally waiting child.  This is completely contrary to how US Foster Adoption works for waiting children.  Children waiting for adoption in the USA may be viewed by anyone visiting the national database at AdoptUsKids.org, or any of the state websites featuring waiting children in fostercare.

Under new leadership, the Office of Children’s Issues has taken radical steps to impose new fees on families wishing to adopt, crushing oversight requirements on adoption service providers, and now a vague instruction to agencies that repercussions may be implemented (retroactively!) should they fail to comply with instructions about sharing information on specific children with interested families.

How many families would adopt a child with Cerebral Palsy, had they not have first seen his or her photo?  There are over FIVE HUNDRED children with CP waiting on RainbowKids.  What chance do these children have of finding families if this new leadership at DOS has their way? ZERO! 

Bulgarian Organizations Submit Letter to US Departement of State on Behalf of Special Needs Children:

The situation at the Office of Children’s Issues has become so dire, that 15 Bulgarian Organizations have written a letter outlining how shutting down advocacy for children with medical special needs goes against the Hague Covention.  This letter was submitted this week and may be read here.

What can you do?? Read this about rising fees in adoption, and know that shutting down waiting child advocacy is part of it. This is happening. Don’t let it!

SAVE ADOPTION

Special Needs Spotlight: Heart Defects

How many children with a heart defect are waiting for a family on RainbowKids?

ONE THOUSAND-FIVE-HUNDRED AND FIFTY FOUR

ALL of those children will not be able to receive advocacy, including being featured here and on RainbowKids.com, if child-advocacy for international children is shut down. Including these twins at right.

No homes for waiting children.  No International adoption.

One THOUSAND.  Five Hundred.  Fifty Four….that is how many with just this single special need are waiting for a family.  Adoption needs RainbowKids. These children need families.  ONE PERSON at the Department of State Children’s Issues should not be the reason these kids fail to be raised in a loving family.

View Waiting Children

Featured Country:  Burkina Faso

There are many children waiting in Burkina Faso

Married couples between the ages of 30-50 may adopt a child or sibling group from the West African country of Burkina Faso.  Children range in age from infants to teens. Travel consists of 15 days in country. 

• Article: What Happens When You Travel to Adopt in Burkina Faso?
• Article: 4 Reasons to Consider Adopting from Burkina Faso

Watch Me Now: Girl Receives Doll with Matching Prosthetic!

Source: foxnews.com

The gift of a new toy is met with enthusiasm by most children, but for one Texas girl, a doll that looks just like her triggered tears of joy.

Courtney Fletcher Bennett gave her daughter Emma a new American Girl doll that was custom fitted with a prosthetic right leg, just like hers.

Read more.

Hopscotch + Arbonne + You = Special Needs Grant!

September 9-30, 2015

ARBONNE Is Supporting Hopscotch Adoptions'

Special Needs Grant Fund

For a limited time, Sandie Buscarino, a former Hopscotch Adoptions client, is sponsoring a fundraiser to benefit Hopscotch Adoptions Special Needs Grants.   These grants help offset expenses related to the adoption of children with non-correctable needs.   Sandie is an adoptive parent of an Armenian angel (ok, he's a little boy so only 90% angel!) who had a correctable special need (cleft lip/palate).  Sandie understands the emotional and financial obstacles adoptive parents face when considering adopting a child with special needs.  These children often become Waiting Children and Hopscotch is devoted to doing all they can to assist parents in finding them their forever families.  

Sandie shared "As a way of thanking them for helping us navigate a long and winding journey to complete our family, Sandie has pledged to donate 75% of the proceeds of Arbonne sales placed through 9/30/15 to Hopscotch Adoptions' Special Needs Grants."

If you are not familiar with Arbonne, Sandie would like you to know "Arbonne is a botanically based, environmentally friendly products line of skincare, makeup and nutrition, to nurture your body inside and out.  Arbonne products are formulated to be highly effective, without harmful chemicals or artificial ingredients."

Taking care of yourself, helps waiting children into permanent families that otherwise would not have a family.

Sincerely,
Robin E. Sizemore, Executive Director
Hopscotch Adoptions, Inc

Sandie Buscarino
Arbonne Independent Consultant, ID: 14586263
Cell (631) 816-5813

Visit sandiebuscarino.arbonne.com to see what Arbonne is all about.  Be sure to check out her holiday items that are only available while supplies last.  She can provide samples of some products if you request, and answer any questions you may have.  You also have the opportunity to join as a preferred client of Sandie and save 20% off all products for one year! Just include "HS" after your last name so that the Hopscotch Adoptions gets the credit.

Offer Expires: September 30, 2015

Hopscotch Adoptions, Waiting Child Program

Let's get started! To access our Waiting Child page, you'll need to read and sign a Privacy Declaration. By e-signing the Privacy Declaration, you agree to the terms set forth and we'll issue a unique Username and Password to you which enables you to view our waiting children.

If you have additional questions about our Waiting Child Program please contact us directly. 

View Waiting Children Now

New Program: Welcome to Guyana!!!

Hopscotch Newsletter - May 2014

In This Issue

• Education Spotlight
• Small but Beautiful: The Reality of Family
• Re-Adoption
• Introducing New Programs

Quick Links

• Waiting Child
• Contact Us
• More About Us
• Resources
• Donate

 

Still waiting....

The Waiting Child Program is the fastest growing program that Hopscotch Adoptions offers.  Unlike the typical track, time to placement usually takes less than a year from dossier submission.  Most of these children are Special Needs or older. We strongly urge you to check out these kids, regardless of the path you are taking. You never know who will grab your heart.

For more information on this program, contact Heather or go to the Waiting Child page and fill out the Privacy Declaration at the bottom of the page.

 

Greetings!

It's almost summer time and we hope your family will be taking advantage of this great weather after our unexpectedly long winter! 

You've received our first ever on-line newsletter and we hope you'll find it useful in getting relevant and supportive information and education articles more frequently.   

Families reported that they loved our full spread newsletter, but we found most families preferred less content and more frequency to better fit their busy lifestyles.   We call this newsletter 'fun sized'.   

 

Education Spotlight:

Creating a Family

Education is one of the most valuable aspects of your adoption journey. To quote the public service announcements of the 80's, "The more you know..." Creating a Family and Hopscotch Adoptions, Inc. have collaborated to allow our families access to a wealth of information through podcasts.

You can access the courses at http://www.creatingafamily.org/learning-center.html

Any Hopscotch family can access the website.  In order to set up an account, contact Megan or Michelle.  They will be glad to set you up.

Small but Beautiful:

The Reality of Family

 

A Bulgarian Princess Comes to Texas

by: Dorcas L. Grubaugh

On August 16, 2013 we drove to Roman, Bulgaria to pick up our sweet daughter.  She was 12 years old at the time, soon to turn 13.  We were adopting a teenager!  We were not sure what to expect, except we had been told to not have any expectations of her whatsoever, just accept her as she was.  Of course, as in many things, this was easier said than done.  We were prepared for teenage things, and we had read all the assigned books and taken the required pre-adoption class credits.  But truly, we weren't very well prepared at all.  Perhaps it was because this was our first child.  Maybe adoptive parents that already have other children in the home feel the transition goes more smoothly.  For us, it was a rocky first month or so.

We discovered that Abigail didn't really know what to expect either.  She was disappointed th at we didn't live next to celebrities.  She said our house was small ... but beautiful, she quickly added.  And that is as it should be, because our sweet girl is also small but beautiful.  And she wishes we had other kids for her to play with, and was sad that our family is small ("we are only three" she says).  But she says we are crazy ... and beautiful.  She has a wonderful sense of humor.  Everything is crazy to her.  That's her word for silly, I think.  So that has pretty much defined our life over the past four months.  Crazy beautiful.  Abigail loves to take photographs.  I think we have more photographic documentation of the last four months of our life than the last four years since Tony and I got married.  You really have to be "on" because you never know when the camera is pointing your way! 

She sings in the kid's choir at church.  She is in an international newcomer school in our school district, which is specifically for children that come to the district with very little English language.  Now her English has progressed beautifully.  She has not learned too many complex words yet, but we can understand each other.  We only struggled for about a month with getting our point across.

The things we've learned so far:  A sleepy child cannot communicate
clearly ... ever.  

No matter how close dinner was to bedtime, there still must be a snack beside her bed available. 

She needs to be told that she is loved and beautiful a LOT!  I mean a whole 

lot.  She asks all the time if we love her, and just about as often if we think she is beautiful.  We talked to some people who work with the kids in Bulgaria and found that the kids had a really nasty form of teasing each other there.  So we are working to reinforce positive words t

o overcome the negative words she heard from some peers.

The American school day is longer by several hours than the Bulgarian school day.  This has been hard on our daughter who feels like the week just doesn't have enough time for other fun stuff she wants to do.  And we don't even have her in any extra-curricular activities yet! 

We've also learned that adjusting to a new family member is more than language, or getting along, it is giving up more of our time than we knew we had, giving up sleep, giving up everything else we wanted to do with our day ... for our new family, for this precious child who needed a home.  How does adoption affect a family? It goes into the very center of it and wrenches out every last selfish strand of your soul and bares it before you.  What you do with the moment of deciding to be selfless or selfish varies with each passing day, but you are fully aware that you are making a choice.  This is the reality of adoption ... you are choosing to make the life of another the priority over self.  And in the end, you discover that that is okay, because your family may be small, but it is beautiful.

Re-adoption in the United States:

I finalized before I came home, why should I re-adopt?

You just got off the plane with birth certificate and visa in hand. You're tired and, if you are lucky, the child you waited for so long to bring home, is sleeping in your arms.  We're done, your jet-lagged brain crows, 

No more paperwork!

Sorry to burst your bubble, but there's just a little more paperwork you should do. You need to re-adopt in the US.  Otherwise, that precious cargo you fought so long and hard for will have her work cut out for her in the future and so will you.

The goal of re-adoption in the US is to make sure you and your child will have access to the same paperwork most US citizens take for granted.  First and foremost, by re-adopting you will have a domestic Adoption Decree and Birth Certificate issued in a form that is accepted in all domestic courts and recognized by American institutions.  From kindergarten to college and beyond, you will be asked for this paperwork.  If you think the DMV is difficult now, imagine trying to get a license with a Bulgarian adoption decree. 

If you have changed the name of your child after coming home, you have to re-adopt and re-apply to USCIS for a new Certificate of Citizenship to establish the revision.  Most visas and certificates bear the child's name followed by the father's first and last name and, surprisingly, most families really don't want their little girl going through life with the middle name Gilmer.  I could be wrong, Gilmer is a very pretty name in some circles.

Re-adoption also guarantees your child's right to inheritance in every state.  No one wants to think that far down the road but this little change at the beginning can make all the difference at the end.  Not all states recognize the validity of foreign adoption decrees in all legal cases and, if there is ever a question as to whether your child is eligible to receive an inheritance or other legal benefits, the re-adoption provides a domestic record of the child's legal status.

Finally,  the "Accuracy for Adoptees Act," requires that a Federal Certificate of Citizenship for a child born outside of the United States reflect the child's name and date of birth as indicated on a State court order or State vital records document issued by the child's State of residence after the child has been adopted in that State. This means you will be able to change your child's date of birth to reflect his true age. 

We all hate paperwork and you have obviously done way more than your share but take these last steps.  You won't regret it!

Introducing New Programs...

Serbia

Serbia has just implemented Hague Treaty for Intercountry Adoption as of April 1, 2014.  If you are open to adopting children with moderate to non-correctable speci

al needs, you'll find that Serbia is one of the most economical options to bring a child home. 

The process for learning more about the waiting children requires a letter of introduction to be submitted to the Ministry requesting approval and additional information.  Hopscotch provides the letter template and once it is completed, interested families would return the letter to Hopscotch and it will be submitted on your behalf.   There is no financial obligation for inquiry with the Ministry and our assistance with your letter of introduction.  

If you are interested in learning more about Serbia's waiting children,  visit us on our Waiting Child page or contact us at serbia@hopscotchadoptions.org, and we can provide a letter of introduction template to help you get started.

Ukraine

Hopscotch is proud to announce our new program in Ukraine.  Though the country is undergoing tremendous civil strife, children are still coming to the US via Hosting programs and finding forever families.  Hopscotch is working with excellent partners .  Contact us to learn if Ukraine is right for your family.   If you are interested in hosting, need a family assessment, home study or update to your home study in NC or NY, we can help. 

So, how did you like it?  Let us hear from you and if you like this new format.  Expect to see more from us sooner rather than later, if so.  

Our next edition will include important information regarding the ramifications of the Universal Accreditation Act and a new story from a Hopscotch family that has had great success and benefited from an open (intercountry) adoption. 

Until then, 

Robin E. Sizemore

Hopscotch Adoptions, Inc

Have a story to share? Send it and a few photos to Michelle or Megan and we'll get you in future newsletter.

What Does a New i-Pad Mini & A Waiting Child Have In Common? YOU!

                 

Waiting Child Notification

Waiting Child Program

Great Wall China Adoption 

Not Every Story begins with "When you were a baby..."

Your donation is the beginning of a waiting child's story...They're counting on you!

Hi! I am 4 yrs. old.  When I was younger I had a big surgery that corrected my VSD and ASD and now my heart beats normally. I am not as big as the other kids my age but wonderful things come in small packages.  I am not as far along as my class mates but I am trying really hard to be a better speaker.  I still talk with short sentences, but I am ready to start using bigger ones.  My legs can be very stiff but I got to a special doctor where we practice using my legs so they can get better. I like to think I am very smart and I love pleasing my caretakers.

Hi! I am 6 yrs. old.  I was brought to the orphanage when I was just a few days old.  I think my parents knew that I would be taken care of there.  My right wrist doesn't look like all of my friends, but I have no problem keeping up with them.  I can do almost everything all by myself.  I can use my right hand to grab things and can even use my left hand to draw and hold my chopsticks!  I can be introverted at times but I still enjoy playing around with the other kids. I like to play with toys, especially trucks.

Hi! I am 9 yrs. old.  The doctor's say that I have Hemophilia, but I don't let that stop me.  Even though I can't run fast because of my condition, I love to watch my remote control cars go fast.  Toy cars are my favorite, but I really enjoy going to the zoo.  I know I am very smart so that is a place where I get to learn more and share what I learn with my friends.  I talk a lot with my friends and especially love it when we get to go to the carnival!

Hi! I am 8 yrs. old. My doctor says that I have cerebral palsy and I have to go to therapy every day so that I can get stronger.  Since my speech is a little behind my friends I typically stay quiet but I am learning to speak better. I really enjoy helping my teachers and they help me study. I can walk by myself but I fall down a lot.  I don't let anything keep me down, I always get right back up and keep pushing! School is my favorite place to go, I like to learn.  I have been learning to speak better and I can now sing songs and folk rhymes.  I especially love happy songs and sharing them with my friends.

Hi! I am 7 yrs. old. My doctor diagnosed me with osteogenesis imperfecta (OI).  Because of this I have trouble walking by myself so I get to use a wheel chair, which is so much fun! I live with a foster family where we listen to lots of music and they have taught me to sing. I have lots of friends and we have so much fun together. I talk a lot with my friends and they even let me sing to them, which really makes me smile!

For access to

Hopscotch Adoption's password protected waiting child page, please complete the attached Privacy Declaration and fax it to 888-837-3824.  You can also scan the completed form to Heather or Megan.  We'll get right back to you with your unique password.

 

Hopscotch Adoptions

Not for profit. Just for kids.

Stay Connected

Thinking About Adoption?

They're Counting On You!

Not every story begins with "When you were a baby..."

Your donation is the just the beginning of a waiting child's story.

They're counting on you!

 

Visit our waiting child page today!

Partnership with NDSA

Hopscotch Adoptions, is happy to announce our new partnership with the National Down Syndrome Adoption Network!  We appreciate their passionate advocacy for all children with Down Syndrome in need of a permanent family.  Be sure to check out their website and visit their waiting child page.  Like them on their Facebook and follow them on Twitter too.

What I Love About Bulgarian Inter-country Adoption

By Robin Sizemore, Executive Director of Hopscotch Adoptions, Inc.

Well, many things of course.  I love how this country, though we all have flaws in our own systems, seems to really 'get it' when it comes to appropriate family recruitment. 

· Bulgaria has demonstrated an expedient child centered policy and process after diligent attempts have been made to reunite the family or place the child domestically.

· The transparency of waiting children's profiles offered publicly without identifying information to expedite the child's prospects for a future in a permanent family. 

· Bulgaria provides profiles of waiting children that often include extensive medical, social, educational and psychological assessments, along with photos and videos. 

· The Ministry of Justice is supportive when families have additional questions or need reasonable testing prior to a family determining to proceed or not with an official match. 

· The process to adopt a waiting child is clear and incredibly reliable, shorter than most countries and the travel is just two short trips to meet the child and finally to bring the child home.  Most trip stays are no longer than 5-7 days each. 

· And finally, what I REALLY love about Bulgaria's inter-country adoption is the ability to connect with your future child, after officially being matched, via Skype! 

A country that allows the intended adoptive parents to start their bonding in such a way deserves a gold medal for inter-country adoption practice!  Skype is perfect since kids are universally very tech savvy and more than ever it's a preferred way to socially connect.  This mode of connection allows for the ongoing discovery of each other while in wait.  

From the days when we brought our first child home from Georgia in 1995, there were neither cell phones nor consistent land line connections; this opportunity to connect is incredibly futuristic and so great for families.  Go figure! 

Now you see why Bulgaria deserves the gold medal.  Hopefully other countries will look to Bulgaria as a model for their own programs, which often lack the child centered impetus.  Bulgaria puts the child first in every step of the process.  If you are thinking about international adoption, you may want to learn more about our Bulgarian program.  For more information, contact info@hopscotchadoptions.org

FREE Webinar To Discuss Adoption of Children With Special Needs

February 13, 2013, 11:00 AM CST - Webinar with special guest Martha Osborne, founder of RainbowKids.com. We will discuss Rainbow Kids, Special Needs adoptions, Waiting Children, post-adoption resources, international adoption trends and other adoption issues. Martha has long been revered in the adoption community as one of its best and most knowledgeable special needs and waiting child advocates. You will not want to miss this!

Be sure to register and have your questions answered by Martha Osborne and Resources4Adoption founder Cherri Walrod! Space is limited to 100 participants.

Register Now!

 
Loryn Woodworth ~Administrative and Research Assistant
Office, Social Media and Marketing Manager
loryn@resources4adoption.com
www.resources4adoption.com
PHONE:  785-550-8907
Toll Free Fax Number 1-888-309-4836

Welcome Home Two Armenian Angels!

Afghan Baby 'Happiness,' Found Beside Road, Gets a Family

Every child's right is to their biological family when possible, a native country family if not and then, only then shall inter-country adoption be an option for children in need of a permanent family.  As an inter-country child placing agency, we firmly believe and support this path for waiting children. Check out this great story on how one abandoned baby girl found her way into a waiting family's lives.