Regulatory Orphans – WORLD

Adoption advocates worry new rules on international adoption will leave more children languishing in orphanages

by Jamie Dean

Orphans at the Zhytomyr Orphanage in Ukraine (Oleksandr Rupeta/NurPhoto/Getty Images)

When Michelet Joseph arrived in the United States in the summer of 2015, the small Haitian boy couldn’t pull up or stand up on his own.

Michelet was nearly 7 years old.

Born with hydrocephalus, Michelet was 11 months old when his mother died. His father had abandoned the family. Michelet spent the next year in a mountain village north of Port-au-Prince, lying on the floor while his grandfather farmed.

When Michelet’s grandfather could no longer care for him, the toddler went to live in a nearby orphanage run by American missionaries. At 2 years old, Michelet was malnourished, couldn’t hold up his head, and was covered in sores.

In the fall of 2011, a visiting neurosurgeon from the United States performed surgery to relieve Michelet’s hydrocephalus, but his tiny body had atrophied, and he was unable to use his legs. Haitian hospitals didn’t have the resources for the rehabilitation and additional surgeries he’d need in the future.

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Road to foreign adoption leads to happiness

A big thank you to the Homan family for such a great story of advocacy in addition. #saveadoptions.

Source: https://www.dailystandard.com

By Sydney Albert

FORT RECOVERY – The adoption process is a long and challenging road that can sometimes end in heartbreak.

A local mother who has adopted internationally five times, however, says welcoming a child in need into the family is well worth the effort.

Alison Homan and her husband, Ted, had always wanted a big family. They had said they wanted four children, and during the first two and a half years of marriage, Alison Homan delivered three babies. However, one child didn’t live long after birth, and the back-to-back pregnancies were taking their toll on Homan, who didn’t feel she could handle another one.

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Bucking Trump Deregulation Agenda, State Department Chokes International Adoption

Adoption advocates say the State Department is making international adoption rarer and more expensive than ever to consolidate government control over private agencies.

Source: thefederalist.com

By Jayme Metzgar

In September 2016, just as the presidential race was entering its final weeks, the State Department quietly proposed new regulations governing international adoption. Adoption advocates sounded the alarm, saying the regulations would severely hamper Americans’ ability to adopt overseas. I wrote about this for The Federalist just days before the November election.

Then, to almost everyone’s surprise, Donald Trump was elected president. On the day of his inauguration, Trump began a regulatory reform effort, announcing a moratorium on all new regulations from executive agencies. Ten days later, he issued an executive order requiring agencies to repeal two regulations for every new one they proposed.

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Photolistings for International Adoption May Be Banned – Please Help!

The US Department of State is considering banning photolistings for children available for international adoption.

There is a lot we don’t know and the State Department has not issued a final rule, but they are currently considering whether the practice of “soft referrals” is a violation of their regulations. We have not seen an official definition of “soft referral” but it appears to include photolisting—or more specifically allowing international adoption agencies to place a child who is on a photolist.

Photolisting is a common practice in both foster care adoption and international adoption. In fact, it is considered best practice in child welfare for finding homes for harder-to-place children–older kids, kids with health issues, and sibling groups.

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What Is All The Commotion In International Adoption? Watch this video and share!

Take these steps:

• Watch this short 3 minute video.
• Familiarize yourself with the problem and solution facing inter-country adoption.
• Share this video on your personal Facebook page.
• Share this video on your agency Facebook page.
• Forward to adoptive families

Adoptions Have Dropped 72% Since 2005 – Heres Why! by Mark Montgomery AP Feb 28, 2017

Source: http://newsok.com

(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)

Mark Montgomery, Grinnell College and Irene Powell, Grinnell College

(THE CONVERSATION) When Ethiopia stopped allowing its children to be adopted by foreign parents in January, it became the latest country to eliminate or sharply curtail the practice. In recent decades South Korea, Romania, Guatemala, China, Kazakhstan and Russia – all former leaders in foreign adoption – have also banned or cut back on international custody transfers.

In 2005, almost 46,000 children were adopted across borders, roughly half of them headed to a new life in the United States. By 2015 international adoptions had dropped 72 percent, to 12,000 in total. Just 5,500 of these children ended up in the U.S., with the remainder landing in Italy and Spain.

Today, most children adopted internationally come from China, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ukraine. But even China, which has been the top sending country since the late 1990s, has decreased its foreign adoptions by 86 percent.

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International Adoptions Completed from Bulgaria in 2017

*The Bulgarian Ministry of Justice has released the 2017 statistics for intercountry adoptions. As in the past, more than 1/3 of all adoptions were for identified waiting children with special needs. The remaining procedures were direct matches made by MOJ between a registered family and a child cleared for international adoption but not yet entered into the Waiting Child Register. Many of these main procedure referrals likely also had identified special needs. The overall number of completed adoptions from Bulgaria decreased in 2017.*

• USA – 104 total procedures, including 78 for identified waiting children
• Italy – 36 total procedures, including 1 for identified waiting children
• Spain – 22 total procedures, including 1 for identified waiting children
• France – 21 total procedures
• Netherlands – 13 total procedures
• Canada – 7 total procedures, including 2 for identified waiting children
• Ireland – 6 total procedures
• Germany – 4 total procedures
• Denmark – 4 total procedures
• Norway – 4 total procedures
• Belgium – 3 total procedures, including 2 for identified waiting children
• Luxembourg – 1 procedure
• Cyprus – 1 procedure

TOTAL – 226 total procedures for 306 children, including 84 procedures for 133 identified waiting children

Senator Wicker Has Taken A Bold Stand for Vulnerable Children and American Families!

Senator Wicker has taken a bold step for Vulnerable Children and American Families! We need to make sure we have his back.  Please post the attached letter to your Facebook page and urge your friends to like and share as well.  We need to keep the momentum going!!

Click here to read the letter (PDF)

Click here to download an image of the letter to post to Facebook (JPG)

Harder to bring them home: Advocates worried over barriers to international adoption

Mitchell and Dustin Shoumaker adopted siblings Gabe, 8, Maisy, 5, Evangeline, 3, and Olivia, 7 from Poland. The Tupelo couple and other advocates are concerned changes in international adoption could make it harder for others to open their hearts and homes.

When Mitchell and Dustin Shoumaker adopted siblings Gabe, Olivia and Maisy from Poland in December 2015, they knew they had unfinished business.

The Tupelo couple found out their three children had an infant sibling the night before they went to court in Poland, but little Evangeline wasn’t yet available for adoption. It took longer to adopt one child than three, even though Polish law favors keeping sibling groups together.

“Our first experience took nine months,” Mitchell Shoumaker said. “The second time, it took a year and a half.”

Some of the delay was specific to issues in Poland, but the Tupelo couple was also impacted by changes in the way intercountry adoptions are handled in the United States.

“It just took longer in America and Poland,” Mitchell Shoumaker said.

The Shoumakers consider themselves lucky. Evangeline was transferred to the same loving foster family that took care of her older siblings, and the Shoumakers were able to remain in contact with them during the process. They were able to bring the 3-year-old home to Tupelo this summer, and she is doing well.

“We are beyond thankful for that family because they loved our children so well,” Dustin Shoumaker said.

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Your Department of State Will Now Take A Non-refundable $500 Fee Per Child. You’re Okay With That, Right?

Dear international adoption families, are you aware the Dept. of State is now requiring an additional $500 fee for every adopted child at the time of application, starting Feb. 15? (non-refundable).

Click here to learn more.

International Conference Explores Armenia’s Goal to Close Institutions

Several years ago, the Armenian government began a process of deinstitutionalization, which involved substantially reducing the number of publically-run orphanages, residential schools, and night boarding facilities in favor of placing children in home-based care (with a biological relative or in a foster or adoptive placement). In April 2016, the Human Rights Watch reported that there were nearly 3,700 Armenian children living in residential institutions, and 90% of these children had at least one living parent. Many children were placed in public care because they had a disability and needed extra medical and educational assistance. These children’s special needs made it harder for the Armenian government to reunify them with their biological families or adoptive families, due to the fact that homes and communities struggle to provide the resources and support services these children need.

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International Adoption Clinic – LIVE Seminar Registration – March 3rd

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Panel of Parents Adopting Older Kids: Surviving that 1st Year – Creating a Family

Source: https://creatingafamily.org/

Adopting and fostering older kids is hard for both the child and the parent, especially the first year. A panel of moms who have adopted older kids share their tips for surviving the first year home. Host Dawn Davenport, Executive Director of Creating a Family, the national infertility & adoption education and support nonprofit, interviews Melissa Basham, mom to 4 boys adopted from foster care; Abigail Betancourt, mom to 2 kids adopted from foster care; Jan Egozi, mom to one child adopted internationally; and Shelley McMullen, mom to 1 child adopted internationally.

Listen to podcast.

There Are No Unwanted Children: Just Unfound Families

NOTICE FOR LATVIA ADOPTIVE FAMILIES: Post Adoption Reports

NOTICE: Latvia – Post Adoption Reports

This Alert Supersedes the Alert Issued on November 17, 2016

The Ministry of Welfare has informed the Department that they are still missing post-adoption reports from U.S. families who adopted children from Latvia. The Ministry has urged the Department to stress the importance of post-adoption report submission to adoption service providers and adoptive families. For this reason, the Department strongly urges you to comply with Latvia’s post-adoption requirements. Compliance with Latvia’s post-adoption reporting requirements would also contribute to an understanding of the positive impact that intercountry adoption has for children from Latvia who are living in the United States.

Latvian law requires that two post-adoption reports be submitted: one after the first year following the adoption and one after the second year. Reports should be notarized and contain an Apostille certification. Two extra months are allowed for translation and submission of the report. Post-adoption reports must be submitted with a translation in Latvian. The reports can be conducted by the adoptive family’s adoption service provider or the appropriate child welfare officials in the state where the child resides.

The reports must be submitted to the Latvian Ministry of Welfare by mail:
Latvian Adoption Authority
Children and Family Policy Department
Ministry of Welfare
28 Skolas St.
Riga, Latvia, LV-1331

If your report will not arrive by November 1, please also send an electronic version to the following email address, while the hard copy is in route: lm@lm.gov.lv.

Please continue to monitor travel.state.gov for updated information on adoption in Latvia

Join Us This Thursday: All About The Birth Family Search

Register Now

Open records, DNA testing, family tree websites, social media, Google, orphanage searches by other families, even a birth relative doing a reverse search to find information on your child; all can lead quite quickly to an unscheduled, and unprepared for, reunion.

The question is no longer IF your child will one day (sooner rather than later) be able to locate a birth relative, but when. For most domestic adoptees, it is now just a matter of time. For international adoptees, the search is becoming easier and easier.

Join Martha Osborne, adoptee, adoptive mother, and founder of RainbowKids.com, as she shares the realities of birth family search today and provides tips and tools to make informed choices, including:

1. Talking to your pre-teen and teen about searching
2. Gauging if your child is emotionally ready to conduct a search
3. How to handle a birth relative reaching out directly through social media or email
4. Identifying safety risks and how to avoid them
5. The tools available today both for search and for obtaining a medical profile on an adoptee without allowing DNA information to be released

Click here to learn more and register >

Advocating for the Child’s Human Right to Family

Source: http://www.adoptioncouncil.org/

By: Elizabeth Bartholet

Important legislation has recently been introduced in Congress designed to transform the understanding of the rights of unparented children and relatedly of international adoption. This legislation amends the law governing the U.S. Department of State’s (DOS) annual reports on human rights violations. It requires that DOS consider for inclusion in future reports the violation of unparented children’s rights involved in shutting down international adoption and thus condemning children to ongoing institutionalization. For more information about this legislation, see http://cap.law.harvard.edu/current-legislation/.

All those who believe in children’s rights to family, all those who decry the restrictions on international adoption that have denied many tens of thousands of children the nurturing parents they need, should devote their best efforts to supporting this proposed legislation. It represents an extraordinary opportunity to transform the understanding of child rights in ways that are essential to transforming policy – policy that has been enormously destructive of child rights and interests.

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Attention Alabama Families: IAC Presents "Adoption Boot Camp" – June 3rd, 2017

The International Adoption Clinic at Children’s Hospital in Birmingham (AL) will be hosting a live seminar entitled “Adoption Boot Camp” on June 3^rd, 2017 from 8:30am to 5:00pm in the Bradley Lecture Hall at Children’s Hospital.

The focus of Adoption Boot Camp will be on internationally and domestically adopted children or those children in the foster care setting. Discussed will be the awareness of medical, emotional, and developmental needs to expect once home.

While hosted on the same date, our domestic and international focused seminars are held separately so that the focus is on the specific needs of those families, whether adopting from the U.S. or another country. 

Please forward this flyer to any family going through the domestic/foster care or international adoption process OR families already home with their child who you feel would take great benefit from these topics.

The seminar is also opened to professionals within the field of adoption or who would like further education on these topics. CEUs will be available for both social workers and nurses. If you are a professional seeking to attend, please see the flyer noted “for professionals” flyer and pass along to others that will benefit from this educational seminar.

The deadline to register will be: May 20^th, 2017

Adoption Notice – Adoptions from Ghana after March 2, 2017

On January 1, 2017, the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-Operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption (Convention) entered into force for Ghana. After reviewing Ghana’s Amended Children’s Act of 2016, and confirming the establishment of Ghana’s Central Authority, the United States has determined that it will now be able to issue Hague Adoption Certificates for adoptions from Ghana. Consular officers will verify on a case-by-case basis that an intercountry adoption can proceed in accordance with the Convention, as well as with U.S. laws and U.S. obligations.

The Department of State cautions U.S. prospective adoptive parents that there may be delays in the adoption process while Ghana works to implement its new adoption laws, regulations, and procedures. Prospective adoptive parents initiating an intercountry adoption on or after January 1, 2017, should work closely with their U.S. accredited adoption service provider (ASP) to ensure they complete all necessary steps under Ghana’s adoption process in accordance with Ghanaian and U.S. laws.  

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Race, Culture and Adoption Class Offered by Adoption Support Alliance

“Race, Culture and Adoption” class offered by Adoption Support Alliance.  Saturday, March 11th from 1 - 3 pm at Christ Central Church/ 658 Center in Charlotte.  The cost is $50 per person and $60 per couple.  The course provides your family with 2 educational credit hours.

If your family is considering or has adopted transracially or transculturally, this is a wonderful opportunity.  Visit their webpage to register today!

To register visit www.adoptionsupportalliance.org