The membership of The Adoption Policy and Reform Collaborative is, in their words, a diverse group of adoptee professionals, clinicians, researchers, educators, artists, and activists from across the United States. The mission is to identify, create, implement, and sustain ethical adoption practices through collaboration with other stakeholders.
Some members of the Adoption Policy and Reform Collaborative
In response to the Reuters’ series on “re-homing” adopted children, the APRC has issued a statement, available here.
Please note:
The APRC is a group of adult adoptees (US, international, transracial, foster care) who have joined together to promote adoption reform.
They spoke out about the issue over a year ago with staff from the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute and others.
Their statement today includes these two important points (and more):
- Many adopted children have been adopted and turned away from their adoptive parents’ homes before turning 18 or often shortly after. Youth shelters often have high cases of adopted teens/youth.
- Reasons for displacements, disruptions, and dissolutions: lack of appropriate adoptive parent training and preparation, limited or no information about child’s history , absence of or minimal quality post-adoption support, marginal insurance coverage for major mental health services.
Much valuable food for thought here.
The APRC, by the way, is sponsoring the November conference “Reframing the Adoption Discourse,” a ground-breaking, adoptee-led event. I wrote about it here, encouraging early registration, for the conference and for the Minnesota Transracial Film Festival. There is still time, but both are filling up quickly. You can register here.
I found this a compelling read:
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/16/world/international-adoption-us-children-adopted-abroad/index.html?fb_action_ids=10153294303565164&fb_action_types=og.recommends&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map={%2210153294303565164%22%3A384317861696362}&action_type_map={%2210153294303565164%22%3A%22og.recommends%22}&action_ref_map=[]
http://scopeandcircumstance.wordpress.com/2013/09/12/response-to-reuters-rehoming-series/
Missy – I don’t think that article is “more balanced.” I think it tries to dilute the story and I think it’s misleading in some of what it says. She acts like there were 2 stories of children. This 5 part report was much more than 2 children’s stories. I’d have to go back and count, but I read more than 2 and I believe the ones in the 5 part series were different than the ones in the 2 non reuters articles.
Here’s what I posted there “I didn’t personally click every single one of those stories, but the 30 or so I did, dind’t include an agency and weren’t posted by an agency. There was one posted by a third party who was trying to help a family they knew. And the Reuters report is 5 segments and included a lot more than the story of 1 child. You kind of misrepresent that in this treatment of the article. I don’t think the article says anything about dissolutions that are done through legal channels. And I don’t see the benefit in trying to dilute what has happened to many of these children. Instead why don’t we use the report to shock people into pressuring their legislatures for better laws, better support, better training and consequences for violating ICPC….
We should all as adoptive parents be outraged that this has happened to any family. We should be demanding that our lawmakers do something. Not trying to act like the problem isn’t bad.”
The author of that post looked at the 0-4 age category. I clicked randomly between boys and girls and I didn’t find true agency involvement in any of the ones I clicked. She said that of those 17 only 5 didn’t clearly state agency involvement. Going back and looking just at that category, I only find 1 that has clear adoption attorney involvement, a couple that indicate they’d like to do it that way which is not a guarantee that an agency was involved in the end and a couple that are 3rd party postings (I know of this and I think this agency is the one involved, or I know of this and I want to help situations) That’s not a guarantee of agency involvement either. I think the author is also confusing unregulated third parties who are not licensed or trained with proper adoption organizations. The report dealt with some of these third parties. Just because it lists a homestudy is needed and that ICPC will have to be followed doesn’t mean an agency was actually involved. A parent asking about using a particular agency doesn’t mean that agency is involved or will help them rehome the child. And why didn’t she look at the other age categories? Because those were much more desperate parents. I’m sorry, to me that looks like more defensiveness trying to be couched in a was to appear non biased. If we can’t just admit that these things are happening and that they are wrong, how can we expect to change them?
An article that is a little more balanced, imo:
http://www.creatingafamily.org/blog/re-homing-after-adoption-disruptions/