Clearly, Daddies are very susceptible to their little girl's wishes.
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Realistic Expectations The First Year Home
Congratulations! Welcome to the journey of being an adoptive parent. As you get to know your child, you will realize what you don’t know! But not to worry, you aren’t alone. Take time to learn the skills to parent YOUR child. Connect with others who have similar experiences. Make time for yourself. The following articles were complied as a great starting point for your education as a new adoptive parent
- A Different Perspective By Cynthia Hockman-Chupp
- Strategies for Building Attachment By Karleen Gribble, BRurSc, PhD,
- Top Ten Tips for Successful First Year Parenting By Deborah Gray, MSW, MPA
- Why Grandma Can’t Pick Up the Baby By Sheena Macrae and Karleen Gribble
- What is This Thing You Call Sleep? By Dr Julian Davies, MD
- Transitional Feeding Difficulties By Dr Julian Davies, MD
- Alone No More...Recognizing Post Adoption Depression By Heatherly Bucher
- Adding The Oldest By Terra Trevor
- Creating a Fit By Carrie Kitze
- “When Do You Tell a Child he was Adopted?” And Other Secrets We Shouldn’t Keep By Adam Pertman
- Unexpected Special Needs By Nancy Hemenway
- Positive Outcome: How Can You Combat the Effects of an Orphanage By Mary Beth Williams, PhD, LCSW, CTS
- The Impact of Trauma on the Adopted Child By B. Bryan Post
- Ten Keys to Healing Trauma in the Adopted Child By B. Bryan Post
- How to Find a Therapist Experienced in Attachment and/or Trauma tips from the Attachment & Trauma Network
- Sensory Integration And the Internationally Adopted Child By Barbara Elleman, MHS, OTR/L, BCP
- Facts About Parenting a Child with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder By Teressa Kellerman
- How to Avoid the Syndrome of Parent Burn-Out by Harriet McCarthy
- Being an Ally to Families Raising Children with Challenges By Ellin Frank
- Help Your Child Ward Off a Mad Attack by Lynne Namke, EdD
- Being with Your Child in Public Places by Patty Wipfler
- Strategies to Deal with Anger and Power Struggles By Christopher J. Alexander, PhD
- When Adoptions Fail By Kim Phagan-Hansel
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Solving The World Orphan Crisis
I hope you can join us today on Huffington Post Live at 11:00 am ET for a lively conversation on Solving The Worldwide Orphan Crisis. I’ll be joining Dr. Jane Aronson, Deborra-Lee Jackman and other advocates (see below) for a live-stream panel discussion hosted by Huffington Post’s Alicia Menendez. To watch our discussion just visit Huffington Post and click on LIVE or simply click here.
- Dr. Jane Aronson, Author of Carried in Our Hearts, CEO & Founder of Worldwide Orphans, Dr. Jane is a board certified general pediatrician and pediatric infectious diseases specialist, and has been a practicing adoption medicine specialist for the past 12 years
- Des: Dr.Jane Aronson’s son who was adopted from Ethiopia at 15
- Deborra-Lee Jackman, An actress and director who was inspired by her 5-year-old son to become Dr. Aronson’s “partner in crime” and founded National Adoption Week in Australia
- Theresa Rebeck, Broadway playwright, novelist, and Smash producer. Most importantly, a proud mother to Cleo, who was adopted in 2003 from China
- Tanya Barfield, A playright and adult adoptee
News from Bulgaria
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
STUCK – The Documentary Film Tour and Movement
March 30, 2013
Hosted by Kelly Ellison
[Download MP3] [itunes] [Bookmark Episode]
Join us this week as Craig Juntunen, president and founder of Both Ends Burning a nonprofit organization dedicated to serving as a child welfare advocate and a passionate believer in international adoption visits with us about the national tour of the documentary film STUCK. Juntunen is the author of Both Ends Burning: My Story of Adopting Three Children from Haiti and the Executive Producer of film. Juntunen leads the campaign’s effort to build a social movement to enact real and lasting change for the world’s orphaned and abandoned children. Craig will share his personal story of how this movement became the center of his life and what you can do to join him in his efforts to make sure that every child has a family.
Finding Family: Nia Vardalos, Jillian Michaels and Comedian Kym Whitley
An honest, candid conversation about motherhood with Katie’s special co-host: actress, writer, and mother to an adopted daughter, Nia Vardalos! Then, new mom Jillian Michaels on life with two kids under two and comedian Kym Whitley on having just one hour to make a life-changing decision about motherhood. Plus, amazing adoption stories and reunions.
Monday, April 1, 2013
Expert Q&A Webinar: Parenting in Transracial Adoption - April 10
Register now for next week's FREE expert Q&A webinar
Expert Q&A: Parenting in Transracial Adoption
with Deborah H. Johnson
April 10, 2013 @ 1 pm EDT
Parents who adopt a child of a different race may wonder what life will be like as a conspicuous family, how to teach their child about his birth culture, how to find role models of their child's race, what resources exist for multiracial families, how to deal with and prepare their child for racism, and more. Join transracial adoption expert Deborah H. Johnson to ask any questions you have. The Expert Q&A Webinar: Parenting in Transracial Adoption will take place on Wednesday, April 10, 2013 from 1pm to 2pm EDT (12pm-1pm CDT; 11am-12pm MDT; 10am-11am PDT).
Don't want to forget your question? Submit it in advance here.
Can't attend the webinar? We'll post a recording here after the session.
Adoption Advocate No. 57: Reconsidering Intercountry Adoption: Who wants to Adopt and Who Could Be Adopted?
Published March 2013 by Christopher Balding
Nicole Callahan, Editor
Chuck Johnson, Editor
Source: www.adoptioncouncil.org
This article, which is based on a working paper presented at the Ninth Annual Adoption Law and Policy Conference in March 2012, utilizes the 2006-2008 National Survey on Family Growth (conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control), the USAID/UNICEF Demographic and Health Surveys, and UN and U.S. Census Bureau data in order to profile adoptive parents in the United States and examine the serious and often life-threatening dangers faced by orphaned and vulnerable children.
Much has been written about the recent and steady decline in intercountry adoption, and its consequences for the many millions of children worldwide living outside parental care who lack safe, permanent families of their own. Despite the numerous challenges and threats to which orphaned children are exposed some individuals and organizations nonetheless support ending or severely limiting the already low numbers of intercountry adoption, due to concerns regarding its policies and practices.
Among the strongest ethical objections voiced by those opposed to or skeptical of intercountry adoption are the stark differences between birthparents and adoptive parents – differences often defined in terms of privilege and financial resources as well as social background and cultural identity. While these concerns are undoubtedly important, they cannot make the case for severely restricting or eliminating intercountry adoption programs, given the great and undeniable danger posed to children that remain in institutionalized care.
It is important to study outcomes for children who are not adopted due to policies that slow or shut down intercountry adoption programs. When international adoption numbers drop, what are the consequences for those children who might have been adopted? It is the potential impact on children that should and must carry the greatest weight in the ongoing debate over intercountry adoption.
Who wants to adopt?
According to one recent estimate, there are over 900,000 Americans seeking to adopt at any given time1. Each year, American families adopt approximately 50,000 children out of foster care, 18,000 via domestic infant adoption, and 10,000 children via intercountry adoption. Together, these totals represent 93% fewer completed adoptions than individuals actively seeking to adopt.
According to the 2006-2008 National Survey of Family Growth, the reason potential adopters stop trying to adopt is their inability to find an available child to adopt.2
Who could be adopted?
In August 2008, UNICEF estimated that there were 132 million orphans worldwide, 13 million of whom were dual-parent orphans – children that had been orphaned by both parents. In this report, UNICEF asserted that “the vast majority of orphans are living with a surviving parent.”3 By January 2011, UNICEF’s global orphan estimate had swelled to more than 150 million, with 18 million orphaned by both parents.4
The ratio of dual-parent orphans in sub-Saharan Africa alone to the total annual number of intercountry adoptions by American citizens (approximately 10,000) is 910:1. International adoptions into the United States are miniscule compared to the number of children in sub-Saharan Africa who have lost both parents. Current rates of intercountry adoption are barely making a dent.
While UNICEF is technically accurate in noting that a majority of orphans live with a surviving parent or other relative, the enormous number of children that have no surviving parents and no other family members able to care for them should underscore the potential of adoption to positively and permanently impact the lives of millions of children.
When considering the plight of 153 million children, even a small percentage of children that could be adopted results in large absolute numbers. If only 1% of orphans worldwide were able to be adopted, this would result in 1.53 million adoptions every year; even just one-tenth of 1% of orphans would result in 153,000 international adoptions annually.
Orphaned children in middle- and low-income countries are at significantly higher risk of suffering a wide range of negative physical, mental, and behavioral outcomes as compared to their non-orphaned peers.5 Orphans in middle-income countries typically experience adequate physical development but poor mental health outcomes due to their institutionalization. Orphans in poor and lesser-developed countries experience better mental health outcomes relative to middle-income orphans, but poor physical health outcomes. While orphaned and vulnerable children are, on average, 5-10% less likely to attend school than their non-orphaned peers, their material deprivation is significantly higher – by 20-30%, on average.
Most tragically, a great number of orphaned and vulnerable children do not survive to adulthood. In 2010, the number of orphaned children under age five who died in sub-Saharan Africa was more than 30 times the number of all intercountry adoptions by American parents.
Putting the numbers in perspective
The idea that even large increases in international child adoption into the United States will somehow overwhelm other countries, or materially reduce the number of children available for domestic adoption in their home countries, is simply not supported by the facts. The difference between the vast number of orphaned and at-risk children and the incredibly low number of intercountry adoptions by American parents is too large to have an adverse effect on domestic adoption programs in other countries.
If the current number of intercountry adoptions into the United States were to increase tenfold, this would still represent only one-half of 1% of dual-parent orphans worldwide, and less than one-tenth of 1% of all orphans.
If the percentage of dual-parent orphans worldwide adopted by families in the United States were to rise to just 1% of the global total number of orphans, this would still increase annual intercountry adoptions into the U.S. by approximately eighteen fold.
Even if we focus on the most vulnerable, the disparity between the number of orphans in need and the number of adoptions is enormous. Figure 1 shows the number of single- and dual-parent orphan deaths compared to the number of adoptions into the United States from sub-Saharan Africa. There are more dual-parent orphan deaths in sub-Saharan Africa than adoptions into the United States.
If our goal is to protect and promote the best interests of orphaned children, it is difficult to understand how witnessing 300,000 orphan deaths annually while simultaneously limiting international adoption can be defended as sound policy. There are large numbers of qualified families seeking to adopt that could help reduce the enormous number of deaths amidst this most vulnerable population of children. Without discounting the many issues in intercountry adoption, or underestimating all the work that must be done to address the complex factors that lead to such large numbers of orphaned and abandoned children worldwide, it must be acknowledged that remaining alive, in good health, with loving parents, is in the best interests of children who find nurturing families through adoption.
Comment: National Council For Adoption
Despite the growing orphan crisis and the life-threatening dangers faced by orphaned and vulnerable children, the rate of intercountry adoption continues to decrease each year and has been plagued by slowdowns, moratoriums, and program closures such as the recent Russian ban on adoptions to the U.S. It is likely that intercountry adoption numbers will continue to decline in the future.6
It is the position of the National Council For Adoption that intercountry adoption is not necessarily the first or ideal option for all orphaned or abandoned children; rather, intercountry adoption should be part of a holistic, comprehensive, child-centered continuum of care that considers time-sensitive options for children, including keeping children with their biological parents or kin whenever possible, and in their countries and cultures of origin if domestic adoption is an available and viable option. More must be done to prevent family dissolution, give parents the resources and help they need to continue to parent their children, seek out and support existing kinship connections if parents are absent or deceased, and develop and strengthen domestic adoption programs for in-country placements – whenever such options are possible and can occur within a realistic time frame that takes into account the child’s need for timely permanency.
However, for many children, intercountry adoption may indeed represent their best chance at achieving safety and stability in nurturing, permanent family-based care. Child welfare advocates should recognize the fact that keeping more children in institutionalized care puts physical health and safety as well as stability and permanency out of reach for countless children – and, in too many cases, leaves them vulnerable to poverty, disease, and even death. Many institutions are unable to provide the kind of care that is necessary for a child to thrive, especially during the early years when nurturing is so important.
Research has consistently shown positive outcomes for the vast majority of children adopted internationally, in sharp contrast to the poor outcomes shown in numerous studies of orphaned and vulnerable children living in institutions. While it is essential to protect and promote the good and transparent adoption practices that all children, birthparents, and adoptive parents deserve, the dire consequences for children when intercountry adoption programs are restricted or closed should remain at the forefront of this ongoing discussion, and must be taken into consideration when making important and impactful decisions about child welfare policy.
Christopher Balding is an associate professor of business and economics at the HSBC Business School of Peking University Graduate School. An expert in sovereign wealth funds, he recently released a book entitled Sovereign Wealth Funds: The New Intersection of Money and Power, published by Oxford University Press. His work has been cited by a variety of media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal and Financial Times, and published in such leading journals as Review of International Economics, International Finance Review, and Journal of Public Economic Theory on such diverse topics as CDS pricing, the WTO, and the economics of adoption and abortion. Professor Balding received his PhD from the University of California, Irvine and worked in private equity prior to entering academia. He is married with two daughters and lives in Shenzhen, China.
1 Jones, Jo, “Adoption Experiences of Women and Men and Demand for Children to Adopt by Women 18-44 Years of Age in the United States, 2002,” Series 23, No. 7, August 2008. Data from the National Survey of Family Growth.
2 Ibid.
3 UNICEF Media Centre Position on Orphans accessed on June 24, 2012.
4 UNICEF Orphan data accessed on June 24, 2012.
6 For more on intercountry adoption numbers worldwide, see: Selman, Peter, “Global Trends in Intercountry Adoption: 2001-2010,” Adoption Advocate No. 44 (National Council For Adoption, February 2012).
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