Category: Right to a family

Sharing the Perspective of Prospective Adoptive Parents with Disabilities

Last week, the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute was honored to co-host a policy briefing with the Bipartisan Disabilities Caucus, National Council on Disability, Child Welfare League of America, National Association of Social Workers, and the American Psychological Association.

The briefing focused on adults with disabilities as a recruitment resource for children in need of families, and highlighted Chapter 10 – The Adoption Law System of the recent report by the National Council on Disability (NCD) titled “Rocking the Cradle: Ensuring the Rights of Parents with Disabilities and Their Children”. The report details how prospective parents with disabilities are often denied the opportunity to open their hearts and homes to children who desperately need them.

One of the panelists, Colleen Gioffreda, has been the Little People of America’s Adoption Coordinator for the past ten years, and has helped facilitate the adoptions of over 200 children with dwarfism.  She created the Little People of America (LPA) Adoption website, as well as the LPA Adoption Facebook page which educates potential parents about adoption in general, children with dwarfism who are currently available for adoption, and what resources are out there to help make an adoption possible.

Colleen’s testimony at the briefing was quite compelling, so we want to share it with you here:

Good morning,

My name is Colleen Gioffreda, and I am the National Adoption Coordinator for Little People of America, or LPA.  LPA is a nonprofit organization that provides support and information to people of short stature and their families. We have more than 6,000 members, and are the world’s largest organization for people with dwarfism and their families. Founded in 1957, LPA strives to offer the support and resources necessary to empower all people with dwarfism to reach their full potential.

The LPA has had an adoption coordinator position since 1961.  Adoption has long been a significant part of LPA’s culture.  Within my generation of LPA, approximately 40 percent of the children who have parents with dwarfism have been adopted.  Compared to the approximate rate of 2.5 percent of all US children adopted, (http://www.pbs.org/pov/offandrunning/adoption_fact_sheet.php) 40% is a much higher portion of adoption children within my generation of LPA.

My personal story is that I kind of fell into adoption after getting a phone call one day that a little girl with achondroplasia needed a family – were we interested?  My husband and I had not considered adoption at that point in our lives – we frankly thought that we couldn’t afford it yet.  But, it was meant to be, and we adopted our now 12 year old daughter, who is amazingly smart and compassionate and who cannot wait to be a teenager, although her parents certainly can.  I ended up helping out the adoption coordinator for LPA a few months later, and then eventually took over the position around ten years ago.

There are many reasons why people within LPA want to adopt.   One reason is that it is difficult for some people with dwarfism to carry a pregnancy, because of spinal stenosis or other health issues.  Another reason is that average stature parents decide to adopt a sibling for their child with dwarfism so that they may grow up together and have similar experiences.  Other adoptive parents make a connection through our adoption website with a particular child and feel that they are destined to be a part of their family.  The main theme that I see, however, is that people with dwarfism are proud of who they are, and want to share their positive lives with their children – adoptive and biological.

Regarding domestic adoptions, I have been involved with several adoptions where the parents with dwarfism met challenges along the way.  Allison and Tom, from Georgia, were interested in adopting their 4th child, and were on my “Waiting Parents” list.  I received a call from a foster care agency in Denver, who had a little boy with Spondyloepiphyseal Dysplasia (or SED), who also had a tracheostomy.  I talked at length several times to the social worker, who was enthusiastic about hearing about the couple, and who expressed that she thought they were a great match.   She changed her mind a few days later, after discussing the types of dwarfism they had, and told them that they were not going to be a match after all.  She called me and told me that she didn’t think that they could “handle” a child with a tracheostomy – since they were so short, they wouldn’t be able to help him with his equipment.  I do not believe she thought that I had the same type of dwarfism that they had.  They appealed, and then appealed again, but lost both times because we were told the foster mother apparently wanted to adopt him after all.  This was years ago, and I believe that he never was adopted by his foster mother.

Adopting foster children has been impossible for LPA members, so far.  We have had a total of 12 foster children that had families through LPA, but none were adopted. Not for not trying several times, though.  One boy, Jonathan, was from Texas.  He was 15 when Mike and Kim began to attempt to adopt him.  He aged out of the system – they attempted to adopt him for 2 ½ years, but he never got out of foster care.  We don’t know if it was because Mike and Kim had dwarfism, or if it was because Jonathan had numerous social workers that never seemed to talk to each other.  Mike and Kim were extremely disappointed, and then turned to International adoption, where they eventually adopted 3 additional children, making their family complete at five children all through adoption.

Rachel and Joseph are a couple who live in North Carolina, who have been on my waiting parent list for many years.  They are licensed as foster parents, and have told the agencies that they will take any type of child with any type of special need.  They have fostered a child only once, and he was placed back with his birth parent soon after they began to foster him.  They have been waiting for 17 years to adopt a child.  17 years.  You can imagine the frustration that they have experienced – they have done everything that they have needed to do for their paperwork, and yet they still wait.  Rachel has an undiagnosed type of dwarfism and Joseph is average stature.

LPA has found many more children adopted through International adoption than through domestic adoption, but even that has proven to be difficult at times.  LPA has had adoptive children through over 20 different countries – the highest numbers of children who are adopted internationally come from China, Korea, the Ukraine, Bulgaria, and Russia, previously.  China has a special needs program which includes dwarfism.  Chinese children with dwarfism available for adoption are typically abandoned between 6 – 12 months, when the diagnosis of dwarfism becomes apparent.

Although China has strict eligibility requirements to adopt, we have found very good agencies that have been able to work around China’s requirements, just as long as the parent’s disability matches the child’s disability.  In other words, a person with achondroplasia, like me, would be able to adopt a child with achondroplasia, but not a child with Downs Syndrome.  The agencies that have helped us ensure that the parent’s disability matches the child’s disability on paper – for example, even if the child really has achondroplasia, her paperwork may say that she has Rickets, or dropsiness of foot ( a diagnosis I’ve seen in a child’s file before) or something else.  The parent will have that diagnosis too – perhaps in parentheses next to their true diagnosis.  We have also helped to get around the BMI requirement by using BMI curves specific for people with dwarfism, instead of using standard curves.

We have come across agencies that are not willing to fight these small battles.  Sharon and Joseph, who had paid about $10,000 to an agency to adopt their daughter Ying, were told that China denied them to adopt her.  The agency refused to appeal, saying that China’s rule was the rule, and that they should not pursue another child through China.  Instead, Sharon and Joseph waited until their daughter was not exclusively represented by that agency, and found her again through another agency, which had no issues in explaining the situation to the CCCWA. (China’s child protection agency in charge of adoption).  Ying has now been with her parents for 3 ½ years, a very happy and very expressive 9 year old American girl.

Another couple, Matthew and Charlotte, who adopted from China 2 years ago, had a similar experience with an agency, and were told that it looked like they wouldn’t be able to adopt from China after all, after spending thousands of dollars toward adopting their daughter.  They went to a different agency, and with some ingenuity, sent pictures to China from the chest up, because they were fearful that china would reject them due to Matthew’s very small stature.  Their daughter Lillian is a beautiful, happy little girl who is thriving in school.  In China, she most likely would not have had the opportunity to go to school, due to her dwarfism.  In the United States, she can become a doctor, or a lawyer, or anything else she chooses.

In China as well as other countries, sometimes discrimination can be a problem, but also, just getting around the country itself can be the challenge.  We have many members in LPA with mobility issues, and being able to navigate inaccessible sidewalks and streets proves to almost be impossible.  Notice I said almost.  Still, our members overcome these challenges in order to bring their children home.  International adoption, with all its challenges, is still easier in the long run than adopting children out of foster care.  And I really hope this changes someday.

Although we have faced many challenges with adoption in our community, adoption is still a huge part of our culture.  In the past ten years, we have helped approximately 200 children with dwarfism find their families.  LPA is proud of our community and view raising children with dwarfism as an amazing and wonderful privilege and experience.  I’m in the middle of raising four children, all with dwarfism, and I wouldn’t want my life any other way.  Except maybe the amount of laundry.

May 2014: Memorial Day & National Foster Care Month

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Every year in May, during the holiday weekend as the nation celebrates Memorial Day and remembers those who died in our nation’s service, I call my grandmother to wish her a Happy Memorial Day. While she did not serve personally, her brothers and husband did. We often talk about her brother Ralph who died at the age of 19 as he served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. His ship, the USS Indianapolis, was torpedoed and sunk by a Japanese submarine in the Pacific Ocean on July 30, 1945–just two weeks before the nation celebrated “Victory over Japan” on August 15. My grandmother has shared with me how her family was still mourning the very recent loss of her brother as the rest of nation cheered that day. I call my grandmother every Memorial Day in part because I can–she is the matriarch of my father’s family and I enjoy talking to her. But I also call because her story is my story through our shared family history, and I want her to know that someone remembers her brother’s—and by extension her family’s—sacrifice.

In the world of child advocacy, May is also when we celebrate National Foster Care Month. Originally designated by the Children’s Bureau of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 20 years ago, National Foster Care Month (NFCM) provides an annual opportunity to recognize the approximately 400,000 children and youth living in foster care, as well as their foster parents, child-welfare workers, advocates and mentors. It also continues to bring attention to the many challenges faced by children and youth in foster care. Although foster care is intended to be temporary, children and youth remain in the system for an average of two years, and more than 23,400 youth age out of foster care each year without reunification or adoption.

At CCAI, we are keenly aware of the heart cries of these children to be part of a safe, loving and forever family—and this May we are focused on raising awareness about the challenges that older children and youth face in finding their forever families. Did you know that of the 101,666 children available for adoption out of foster care in FY 2012, only 52,039 were adopted? And sadly, for children age nine or older, who make up 48% of the total number of children in foster care, only 25% (13,184) from this age group were adopted (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2013). We know that without the security and support of a family, those who age out of foster care struggle to obtain housing, insurance, higher education and employment. We also know that all too often laws and policies create barriers that make it difficult for children to find their forever families, and thus CCAI’s mission is to identify any such barriers and support policymakers as they remedy them.

President Obama expressed his support for National Foster Care Month in an official Presidential Proclamation; both the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives registered their support through Resolutions. Add your voice to theirs! This May, we invite you to consider ways you might become more involved in the lives of children and youth in foster care – because every single child deserves the opportunity to call a grandparent of their very own on Memorial Day and learn parts of our nation’s history through a special connection with someone who lived it.

Becky Weichhand, Director of Policy, CCAI

CCAI Report – What Barriers Remain: Areas of Needed Adoption and Foster Care Reform in the 113th Congress

CCAI REPORT RELEASE

What Barriers Remain:
Areas of  Needed Adoption and Foster Care Reform in the 113th Congress

This coming Saturday, November 23rd, we will celebrate National Adoption Day and approximately 4,500 adoptions of children in foster care that will take place in courthouses across the nation. It is a day of celebration as well as a poignant reminder of the nearly 100,000 children in foster care still awaiting their own adoption day.

The Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute exists because we not only believe that every child needs a family, but also that they can find that family – no matter what their age or circumstances. Toward that goal, we continue to raise awareness of the policy barriers that prevent children in the U.S. and around the word from finding their forever families. We will work daily with policymakers to address these barriers until every last one is removed.

We are pleased to announce the release of our report, What Barriers Remain: Areas of Needed Adoption and Foster Care Reform in the 113th Congress.  This report highlights several areas where the U.S. Congress might work to reduce the number of children living without families in the U.S. and abroad.   It is our hope that all who read this new report, from Members of Congress to adoptive parents, Members of the Administration to foster youth, will work in partnership with us until every child in need of a family finds permanency.

What Barriers Remain

 

CALL TO ACTION: IT’S TIME WE DEMAND A FAMILY FOR EVERY CHILD

In April of this year, at little girl named Daria, who would have turned 3 in May, died from an undiagnosed heart ailment in her orphanage in Nizhny Novgorod, a city about 250 miles east of Moscow.  While the death of any child is a tragic event, what makes Daria’s passing all the more heartbreaking is that she died alone, instead of in the loving arms of her American family that had hoped to adopt her but couldn’t because of the Russian adoption ban.  When I heard the news that a waiting child had died, I could not help but cry.  My tears were for the life she would never live, but they were also for the thousands of other children who, like Daria, have had their lives ended by the stroke of a government’s pen. Over the last ten years, children in Russia, Guatemala, Kyrgyzstan, Vietnam, Haiti, Kazakhstan, Nepal, Ghana and Rwanda have lost the right to find a family through international adoption.

As if this is not enough to invoke tears, countries that close their doors to international adoption too often struggle to provide family based alternatives for their children.  They soon realize that it takes time and resources to build a child welfare system in which families are able to stay together and provide alternative loving homes for children whose families’ were not.  Some never get to the point of realizing that truly protecting a child’s right to a family requires both legal and cultural change.  And so it is that millions of children are condemned to life in prison for the simple crime of being born.

For fifteen years, I have had the honor of fighting for these children in Congress.  I have begged people to consider the fate of the hundreds of Cambodian children whose families were ready to care for them, I have cried with the families whose children were trapped in Guatemala and have flown half way around the world to implore the Government of Vietnam to provide their children with all options for finding a home.  But we cannot keep fighting this battle a country at a time.

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I have also read everything I can find on how human relationships affect human development, especially in early years.  It is amazing how much scientific evidence there is to support the notion that children not only deserve a family, but they NEED one.  Children who have a secure, stable relationship with a parent thrive, and those that are deprived of this type of relationship deteriorate.  It is really that simple.

For these reasons, I am convinced the time has come for all those who believe in their core that children have a basic human right to a family to stand up and be heard.  If we don’t, there is no doubt in my mind those who have obscured the world’s view on international adoption will succeed in eliminating it as an option and most governments will just continue to rely on orphanages to raise their children.  Scarier still, we will continue down a path which ends with tens of millions of children whose development has been hindered: making them more likely to engage in crime than finish school, more likely to be a government dependent, than a productive member of society.

This week Senator Mary Landrieu and Senator Roy Blunt called on Congress to change the way the United States Government views the welfare of children abroad.  Their vision is to move the United States away from a system that views children as an immigration enforcement issue to a system that embraces the opportunity to protect their right to be safe from abuse and to be loved by a family.   Their bill, Children in Families First, would align the United States Government’s efforts around what most Americans agree is a core value of our society: family.

For those of you who have not spent the last fifteen years working on adoption issues, let me try and summarize what this bill does.  Right now, neither the State Department and the USAID, which are the two agencies responsible for advancing child welfare issues abroad, have a high level office that focuses on the welfare of children.  At State, if a child is a refugee, they would be covered under the Bureau that addresses refugee issues; if they are a victim of trafficking, they may benefit from the work done by the Office to Combat Human Trafficking and so on.  The same is true at USAID, if they are in need of immediate health care, they will likely get this assistance from the Maternal and Child Health Integrated Program, if they are a victim of AIDS, and their assistance will be spearheaded by the Office of the Global AIDS coordinator.  And if you are a child who is outside of family care, you better hope you fall into another covered category because otherwise no one in our government is responsible for developing policies and programs on your behalf.

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You do not need to be a policy expert to appreciate the flaws in such a system.  Practically speaking, what this means is that a United States Ambassador working in a country like Vietnam might know very well what the USG could do to help reduce the number of children living outside of family care in Vietnam, but he has no counterpart in his own Department to turn to for assistance and no resources at USAID dedicated to such work. As we well know, a common reason given for suspensions and closures of international adoption is the need to create better systems for safely and ethically processing adoptions, a need that cannot be met on a wide scale basis without US leadership and support.

Let me be clear, while the bill is calling for a new approach and clear leadership on behalf of parentless children, it is not suggesting we increase the role or size of the federal government. Since it is Fall, let me use a football analogy to explain this further. CHIFF is not saying we need another tight end  or a receiver. It is saying that if you think you can win a football game without a quarterback, you are sorely mistaken.  Under the current structure, we are without the leadership needed to help protect children who need our protection.  As a result, we are throwing incomplete passes instead of making touchdowns.

And finally, why should you care?  If you are reading this and you care about the welfare of children who have no families, for whatever reason, we need you.  Battles in Washington are won when a group of convicted people use a unified voice to call for change.   If we do not speak out now, I am not sure we will have the opportunity to do so again, the battle will be lost, and the children like Daria will continue to die alone instead of in the loving arms of a mother.

Don’t waste one more minute – visit www.childreninfamiliesfirst.org and learn what you can do to make a difference.

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Kathleen Strottman with son Noah

A Shift in Americans’ Attitudes about Foster Care Adoption

At CCAI, we believe that one child without a family is one child too many.  Right this very minute, more than 100,000 children in the United States’ foster care system are waiting to be adopted.  Last year, nearly 30,000 foster youth turned 18 and emancipated from care without the families they need and deserve.

In an ideal world, the general population would be well informed before developing opinions about important issues such as child welfare. The reality is, however, that most people gather their information from hearsay or biased media outlets. Television shows like NBC’s The Office or Fox’s The O.C. portray foster youth in a wide spectrum of abnormalities, ranging from slightly weird to unstable to dangerous or unmanageable. As a result, many potential candidates for foster parenting opt for other adoption options because they believe that fostering a child would be too difficult. Tragically, their mistaken views add to the growing number of children left without families.

The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption partnered with Harris Interactive to conduct the 2013 National Foster Care Adoption Attitudes Survey to more than 1,400 American adults to gain a broader understanding of their attitudes concerning adoption. With this survey, a follow-up to a similar survey taken in 2007, the Foundation hoped to “better understand Americans’ attitudes about foster care adoption, their belief about the children waiting to be adopted and their perceptions of the foster care system.” Just recently, they released the findings of the survey to the general public, which can be viewed here.

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Among the survey’s main findings:

  • While 51 percent of those surveyed agreed with the statement that all children are adoptable, only 27 percent of those surveyed would consider adopting a child 12 and older.
  • Many American adults still believe that “the foster care adoption process is overwhelming and expensive.”
  • 43 percent of adults said, based on what they had heard or seen, that it was either very difficult or extremely difficult to adopt a child from foster care.

This survey comes six years after DTFA’s initial survey.  The most notable change in attitudes between then and now is that a greater number of Americans understand that children who are in foster care are the victims of abuse and neglect, not dangerous delinquents.  In 2007, 59 percent of respondents thought children adopted from foster care were more likely to have problems with behavior and self-control. In 2012, the number fell 13 points to 46 percent.

So what does all this mean for policymakers?  Below are just a few current policy areas which might help to address the issues identified by the survey.

  • Adoption Tax Credit:  While the process of foster adoption is actually very inexpensive, there are costs which come with raising a child who is adopted from foster care.   According to the 2007 National Survey of Adoptive Parents, only one quarter of individuals who adopt children from foster care have incomes greater than $87,000. Without the support of a refundable credit, the majority of adoptive families might not be able to afford such costs and worse, the fear of not being able to meet them, might deny a child a family. As Congress continues to consider tax reform, it is essential that they understand the importance of continuing to provide a refundable adoption tax credit for families. 
  • Post-Adoption Services: Adopting from foster care can be one of the most rewarding experiences of a lifetime.  But those who have done it will tell you that raising a child who has experienced early trauma is not without its trials.  For adoption from foster care to be the lifelong commitment it is meant to be, it is important that families have access to post-adoption services.  Despite their critical importance, there is little to no dedicated federal funding for post-adoption services.
  • Adoption Incentives:  As the survey indicates, the hardest to place children are often children older than 12.  States who are using traditional child-recruitment strategies are not likely to be successful in finding these children homes.  Although the current adoption incentive program doubles the incentive for placing older youth, a child over nine is half as likely to find a home through adoption.  Federal policymakers need to consider how to incentivize the use of child-focused recruitment models, such as Wendy’s Wonderful Kids, to provide a loving home for every child in need.

For the purpose of this post, CCAI only used a portion of the information resulting from the survey. The complete 2013 National Foster Care Adoption Attitudes Survey can be found here.

CCAI Guest Blog Post: How DOMA Impacts Adoption

Athena Madison
Athena Madison

By Athena Madison

All I have ever wanted was to be adopted.

I have been in and out of the foster care system since I was eight years old. My mother passed away when I was seven and my father sulked in depression so much that he forgot he had kids and we became collateral damage. I became a mother to my siblings at a very young age.  My whole life, I have been an adult. I never had a childhood nor was I ever given the chance to be a teenager; I was too busy fighting off the sexual advances of my father’s drunk friends.

I never had parents although I have always wanted some. I still want a family, but at the age of nineteen, no one will adopt me. Every adult that I have met has said, “I’d adopt you in a heartbeat” but no one has ever followed through. That was always the worst feeling –to give me a bright red balloon and then in that same second pop it.

When I was fourteen, my mentor seriously considered adopting me. I cried tears of joy thinking about that possibility, a home, warm meals and a bed –the kind of safety that said I was going to be okay. She researched the possibility and what it would entail. Unfortunately what she learned was she shouldn’t bother trying; she wouldn’t be allowed to adopt me because of her sexual orientation.

I felt the pain and she felt the pain. The tears, anger and frustration held me hostage when I realized I was being denied a happy home with the only person I had ever trusted. I was being denied of a better life, because of logic that was simply discriminatory. The injustice overwhelmed me. I mourned. I have since mourned the life I could have had.

This summer, I am one of 16 individuals participating in CCAI’s Foster Youth Internship (FYI) program. As part of the program, we are asked to develop a Congressional report and propose a specific policy recommendation that would improve the child welfare system. I plan to present policy recommendations that remove barriers to individuals who are gay or lesbian adopting nationwide. No child should mourn a life they could have had.

This past Wednesday, the Supreme Court made a monumental step in the right direction when they struck down the Defense of Marriage Act.  In doing so, they recognized a simple fact:  that the law is meant to protect all people equally.  I think that people who are gay and lesbian should have equal rights both as spouses and as parents.

There are thousands of gay and lesbian parents who provide safe and loving homes. Words will never truly explain how much I would have picked two loving mothers or two loving fathers over being homeless and without anyone to claim me as their own. I believe that there is not a child in this country that would say “Oh! Can I have that parent there? Yes, the straight one to your right.” No child would turn down the opportunity to have a family to call their own. It’s about time we had some change.

Athena is one of 16 Foster Youth Interns who will be presenting her policy recommendations at a Congressional briefing on Tuesday, July 30.