Category Archives: CHIFF

RIP CHIFF. Hello CAPP? (Part 2)

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CHIFF focused heavily on international adoption, and not so much on family preservation and empowerment. CAPP focuses heavily on improving outcomes for vulnerable children and families around the globe. Adoption, both domestic and international, will always be part of child welfare policy. As a community concerned with children, can those of us involved with adoption find common ground that both strengthens families and includes ethical, transparent adoptions? This post looks at one angle of the legislative conversations. There’s so much to say.

The information in RIP CHIFF. Hello CAPP? (Part 1) is not exhaustive regarding all that is happening with the implementation of the Children in Adversity report (APCA). So many agencies and acronyms. Public and private partnerships. Lofty goals with complex implementation. Millions of dollars. An enormous undertaking. I cannot disagree with the goals: vulnerable children and families deserve support and resources all around the globe.

CHIFF and CAPP Proponents: Overlap?

International adoption was a huge part of the failed Children in Families First (CHIFF) bill. It seems to be a tiny part of CAPP, the Children in Adversity Policy Partnership. What overlap is there between the proponents of the two?

The Joint Council on International Children’s Services is at the forefront of CAPP, as it was of CHIFF. JCICS, however, has been moving steadily away in the last 10 years or so from focusing on adoption agency services, and moving steadily toward a much broader mission of international child welfare. It still has adoption agencies as members, but fewer than was once the case (far fewer than when I worked at JCICS, from 1995-2000, certainly).

One of the biggest proponents of CHIFF, Both Ends Burning, does not seem to be involved with the CAPP. Peter Leppanen, BEB’s Strategic Advisor, is listed as a member of CAPP in a July 2014 Child Policy University Consortium document. His affiliation with BEB is not noted there. Many adoption agencies (and CHIFF supporters) are also listed as members of CAPP. The membership list may well have changed in subsequent months, and current CAPP information does not include BEB, as far as I can tell.

How much should we read into the fact that one of CHIFF’s biggest proponents is not involved significantly with CAPP? BEB has always been first and foremost an international adoption advocacy group. In November, they hosted a Global Symposium on permanency options for children. Looking from the outside, my impression is that BEB is intent on following its international adoption goals, and not committed, as least explicitly, to partnership with the Children in Adversity crowd. I hope, as BEB forges on, they will include the significant, genuine involvement of adult adoptees and first/birth parents.

The National Council for Adoption does not figure in CAPP either. NCFA supported CHIFF: “Chuck Johnson President and CEO of the National Council For Adoption said: “Children all over the world are languishing outside of family care…CHIFF re-aligns existing resources and re-prioritize how the U.S. Government serves this population of vulnerable children. NCFA enthusiastically supports CHIFF.” NCFA’s endorsement of CHIFF, as well as that of JCICS, Both Ends Burning, Christian Alliance For Orphans (CAFO), and others, is here.

In its January 2105 listing of legislative priorities, NCFA does not mention the CAPP, though they refer to CHIFF. This is not surprising: their primary focus is on US and international adoption issues.

CAFO posted its own support for CHIFF here. Jedd Medefind of CAFO has also endorsed the goals of the Children in Adversity report per this USAID press release.

Intercountry adoption is a much smaller part of CAPP than it was in CHIFF. There is minimal mention of the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption in the APCA. Clearly CAPP has a broader goal. And a cast of thousands, if not millions. It is an astonishing configuration of government, public, and private organizations. It makes my head spin.

I have no doubts that CAPP, the Global Alliance, and the attendant organizations, policies, and proposals have their fair share of challenging problems: the role of US AID, the failure of the US to approve the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the abilities of countries receiving assistance to have a role in that assistance, and so on.

Still, given the laudable goals of CAPP to improve early childhood outcomes, to preserve families, and to protect children from exploitation, will the need for international adoption be diminished?  Given the huge decline in the number of children being internationally adopted, for whatever combination of reasons, perhaps an approach that looks to achieve those laudable goals is timely.

Implications

So who doesn’t benefit from CAPP? Many of the same people who didn’t benefit from CHIFF.

CAPP does not, as far as I can tell and I would be happy to be incorrect about this, prioritize funding for pre- or post-adopt resources for internationally adopted children, nor for the birth/first parents of internationally adopted children. NCFA includes Post-Adoption Services on its list of legislative priorities. I have to wonder, as international adoption declines and agencies close, who will be responsible for providing post-adoption services to adoptees and their families, here and around the world. JCICS member agencies placed many of those international children, and they are rapidly changing their focus away from adoption services. Will NCFA step up?

Further, like CHIFF, CAPP does not address retroactive citizenship for all international adoptees. To its credit, NCFA does list “Citizenship Equality Intercountry Adoption” as one of its legislative priorities.

The issue of re-homing here in the US is not a part of CAPP, and nor was it part of CHIFF.

Retroactive citizenship and re-homing are admittedly complicated issues. They require a lot of collaboration and consensus to move at the federal level. The citizenship issue means tangling with immigration foes in Congress. On re-homing, some states have begun to look into and pass legislation on re-homing, but many international adoption advocates would like to see a uniform federal law.

Collaboration and consensus will be needed to move legislation and policies around improvement of pre- and post-adoption matters such as improvement of home studies, increased funding for adoption competent therapists/social workers, and better access to effective post-adoption resources. Providing pre- and post-adoption support to first/birth parents is especially complicated, because those parents are geographically and linguistically far removed; most cannot pay for services. None of this means we should advocate any less for them.

CAPP, it seems to me, is moving ahead with the support of far-reaching US government agencies, big name foundations, child welfare experts, and a variety of advocates. CAPP will probably have little impact on specific adoption policies in the US; certainly it appears not to have CHIFF’s intense focus.

I hope that CAPP will do or has done what CHIFF did not: Include the experiences and insights of those vulnerable children who have grown up, including adoptees and orphans. Include at the table the voices and realities, if not the actual presence, of first/birth parents who lost their children unfairly to adoption, due to poverty, corruption, fraud, social stigma, or other reasons, and prevent such tragedies from happening again.

So many important issues are hanging in the balance for internationally adopted children, and for those who are now international adult adoptees, and their families. Perhaps it will be those adult adoptees who will lead the way. Recent high level media news articles such as the New York Times “Why a Generation of Adoptees Is Returning to South Korea” and the Washington Post’s “Please Don’t Tell Me I Am Lucky” give anyone connected with adoption plenty to consider.

Will future advancements and policy decisions regarding adoption be the result of genuine collaboration and consensus, acknowledging the spectrum of experiences among adoptees, birth/first parents, and adoptive parents, and moving ahead to effectively help vulnerable children and families? I hope so. Let’s keep talking–and listening.

RIP CHIFF. Hello CAPP? (Part 1)

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CHIFF is gone. What does CAPP portend?

The Children in Families First (CHIFF) legislation died a slow death surrounded with silence.  You can read the Post-Mortem here. It is possible, but unlikely, that CHIFF could be re-introduced in the 114th session of Congress, which recently convened.

What have the former proponents of CHIFF been working on, since the CHIFF legislative campaign failed?

Many (though not all) CHIFF proponents have been participating in the strategies outlined in the US Government Action Plan on Children in Adversity (APCA), a report released in December 2012. Several of the CHIFF proponents are now part of the Children in Adversity Policy Partnership (CAPP), an offshoot of APCA. APCA is, according to June 2014 information, “a demonstration of the U.S. Government’s commitment to greater coordinated, comprehensive and effective assistance to prevent and respond to the needs of especially vulnerable children. More than 30 offices across the U.S. Government continue to support programs and policies relevant to the APCA objectives globally.”

The main website for Children In Adversity is here.

IMG_7416 The three principal objectives that everyone involved with APCA supports are these: Build Strong Beginnings (focused on children under five years old); Put Family Care First (to prevent unnecessary family-child separation and promote permanent family care); and Protect Children (from violence, exploitation, abuse, and neglect.)

Each of the objectives requires significant implementation, which likely also will involve signficant funding and legislation.

The CAPP Steering Committee includes former CHIFF proponents Joint Council on International Children’s Services (JCICS), Kidsave, and the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute. Other Steering Committee members are Arms Around the Child, Child Fund International, World Vision, and Save the Children. The co-chairs of the Steering Committee are Tom DiFilipo of JCICS and Greg Mann of Save the Children. Information from JCICS about CAPP is available here, including a link to a survey which allows you to become involved with CAPP.

Government agencies working to implement APCA, along with CAPP, include (but are not limited to) US Agency for International Development (US AID), Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the National Institute of Health (NIH), the President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the US Department of Agriculture, the US Department of State, the Peace Corps, and more.

There is also a Global Alliance for Children involved with APCA as well, a public-private partnership: “In response to the global and national conditions of children in extreme adversity, a group of foundation, bilateral, multilateral, NGO and private sector partners founded the Global Alliance for Children: Ensuring the Future. Through a donor advised fund, joint programs and coordinated funding, the Alliance seeks to achieve three core objectives in six countries over the course of five years.”

The three core objectives are the “principle objectives” outlined above. Three of the countries have been named so far for assistance: Cambodia, Rwanda, and Uganda.

The members of the Global Alliance include US AID, World Childhood Foundation, Childhood, Maestral International, Save the Children, Lumos, GHR Foundation, US Department of Labor, World Bank Early Child development, and USB Optimum Foundation.

One of CHIFF’s goals had been to establish a USAID Center for Excellence for Children in Adversity (USAID CECA), so this is one overlap between CHIFF and CAPP, in that the center has indeed been established, and apparently funded as well. More information is available here.

This is not by any means an exhaustive explanation about the players and policies  involved in the implementation of the Action Plan for Children in Adversity and CAPP. I urge you to take a look at the links and learn more. Huge expenditures of money and time have been and will be spent on this enormous project. If vulnerable children and families are genuinely and substantially helped, that should be applauded.

So, what does that mean for international adoption? Please see Part 2, available tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHIFF Is Dead: A Post-Mortem

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The Children in Families First (CHIFF) bill emerged in autumn 2013, during the 113th session of the US Congress. Its supporters and sponsors surely saw its chances for success as a no-brainer: Who doesn’t agree that all children deserve families, and especially children in impoverished nations?

The Little Engine That Could unfortunately began wheezing and sputtering in the spring of 2014, and by summer 2014 was ominously quiet. The CHIFF website stopped posting News in June. Their Twitter feed stopped chirping in July. No action was taken on CHIFF by the US Congress, so CHIFF died when the 113th session ended in December 2014.

Thousands of hours must have been devoted to this bill by dozens of staff people, such as those on CHIFF’s Executive Committee, including the Congressional  Coalition on Adoption Institute, Both Ends Burning, the Joint Council on International Children’s Services, and the National Council on Adoption.

In the world of adoption, those are some heavy hitters. What happened?

CHIFF proponents underestimated their opposition. It’s a brave new world in adoption policy these days, comprised of advocates who span a vocal, volatile spectrum.  The spectrum ranges from those who are vehemently anti-adoption to those who support adoption but not the way it’s being done now. The days of adoptive parents and adoption agencies leading the way are gone. Adult adopted persons are increasingly well-organized and, well, loud. Some are politically active. Some are wizards of social media. Some are telling their stories in public, compelling, and evocative ways.

CHIFF advocates failed to include a place for them at the table.

CHIFF proponents also hammered away publicly at the US State Department for various reasons, alienating them or at least, it seems to me, ensuring State’s lack of support for CHIFF. CHIFF also failed to garner the support of established, successful family preservation organizations around the world. Thus, the CHIFF proponents’ claims of working to preserve and reunite families–a big goal for many of us–lacked credibility.

A July Congressional hearing on Africa’s orphans was a chance for CHIFF proponents to insist that an adult adoptee (orphaned as a child) speak. They could have provided testimony from African birth parents on how to help with the orphan crisis. They did not do these things. I wrote about it here: Both Ends Burning and CHIFF: Losing Credibility, Spurning Opportunities.

Those of us on a grassroots level who criticized CHIFF were often dismissed as angry and bitter, as not caring about children, as not wanting to help orphans, and as not truly understanding what CHIFF wanted to do. That dismissal fundamentally led to the demise of CHIFF. CHIFF’s opponents–speaking for myself–do care about children, do want to help orphans, and did understand CHIFF. And many of us spoke out. Maybe we weren’t holding meetings on Capitol Hill, or spending organizational money and time to lobby Congress. Nonetheless, the insulated nature of CHIFF’s proponents plus the failure to include adopted adults and first/birth parents–and hence their concerns and realities–are enormous reasons as to why CHIFF is now dead.

CHIFF, when examined closely (beyond the photos and rhetoric), failed to meet current needs in adoption policy. These were CHIFF’s goals:

“CHIFF calls for the redirection of a modest portion of the $2 billion the United States currently spends on children living abroad toward ensuring that all children grow up in a family. What’s more, it calls for programs funded with US tax dollars to focus on reducing the number of children living without families and increasing the capacity of other governments to better protect their own children…CHIFF would streamline, simplify and consolidate responsibility for all processing of intercountry adoption cases.”

These may well seem reasonable if complicated goals, at least at first blush. But here are current, glaring needs that CHIFF did not include:

* Federal legislation to correct a grievous flaw in citizenship for adoptees. Read more here.

* Federal legislation on “re-homing” of internationally adopted children. Read more here.

* Much needed funding for improved pre-adoption and post-adoption resources, to prevent re-homing, to strengthen families, and to protect children.

* Equitable pre- and post-placement resources, counseling, and information for international first parents. All too often these families receive no support after placement. That is unconscionable.

* Emphasis on family reunification and family preservation. Yes, this was an ostensible part of CHIFF. The fact that the overwhelming percentage of endorsing organizations were adoption agencies undermined that claim.

So much money, time, and energy went into lobbying for CHIFF. Certainly the federal indictment and recent guilty pleas by international adoption agency staff for fraud and bribery didn’t help.

Where do we go from here?

There are rumblings in the adoption community–not just on Capitol Hill or in lobbyists’ offices–about pragmatic, meaningful ways to meet current needs in adoption.

We won’t see anything quite like CHIFF again. We will see ideas and collaborations that acknowledge the realities of adoption and of adopted persons, that are unafraid to address the huge gaps in services to birth and adoptive families, and that are inclusive and open to the voices of all those affected by adoption.

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Update on Trial of International Adoption Guides

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Latest news, as of September 17: The trial of Mary Mooney and James Harding has been rescheduled for January 15, 2015, and it is possible there could be additional continuances. Both are out on bail at this point, and forbidden from working in adoption.

Following the February 2014 indictment by the US Department of Justice of the adoption agency International Adoption Guides, three former staff members were arrested for fraud and bribery involving Ethiopian adoptions. One staff member, Haile Mekonnen (the IAG program director in Ethiopia) remains, apparently, in Ethiopia. Of the three arrested, Alisa Bivens (IAG Ethiopian program director in the US) pled guilty and is awaiting sentencing. You can read more here.

The trial of the other two US agency staffers, Mary Mooney (IAG Executive Director) and James Harding (IAG International Programs Director), was scheduled to start tomorrow, September 16, in South Carolina District Court, but it looks like it will be rescheduled. This is not unusual in our court system, and happens for a number of reasons. Maybe the lawyers need more time, or the defendants are working on a plea agreement, or there is more evidence that needs to be shared and reviewed.

Alisa Bivens will be sentenced later this year. In the meantime, victim statements are still being accepted by the Department of Justice Victim Advocate office. I urge all families who were victims of the IAG crimes–fraudulently obtaining adoption decrees and signing off on adoption contracts, misrepresenting information about children and adoption, submitting counterfeit forms to the US State Department, and bribing Ethiopian officials–to speak up.

This is from the DOJ press release in February:

“If you believe you have been a victim of this crime involving the named individuals or International Adoption Guides, please call 1-800-837-2655 and leave your contact information. If you have questions or concerns about adoptions from Ethiopia in general, please contact the Office of Children’s Issues at the Department of State through the email address AskCI@State.gov. If you have specific questions about an adoption from Ethiopia that IAG facilitated, you should contact the Office of Children’s Issues at the Department of State through the email address IAGadoptioncases@state.gov. 

This ongoing investigation is being conducted by the Bureau of Diplomatic Security. The prosecution is being conducted by Assistant United States Attorney Jamie Schoen of the District of South Carolina and Trial Attorney John W. Borchert of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section.”

While it is heartening that the prosecution and punishment of IAG officials are moving ahead, it is dismaying (unconscionable, horrifying, unbelievable–I’m not sure of the right word) that this even happened. So much grief, loss, and heartache for so many children and families, in the US and in Ethiopia.

Adoption agencies, adoption-related organizations, COA (the Hague accrediting entity), and others are, I hope, looking long and hard not only at the crimes allegedly committed, but also at what services have been and should be offered to all the families who were affected by this. I hope they speak up for the children and families as well, acknowledging what is at stake here and how justice might be achieved.

Given that IAG is obviously out of business, how will adoption agency professionals step up and speak out? What standards will the supporters of Children in Families First insist on? How will this affect future families placing their children and those adopting? How will governments and agencies work to ensure that adoptions are not based in fraud and corruption?

Many victims here. Please speak up.

 

Amid the Silence, Would CHIFF Give Up on Adoption?

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It must have seemed like such a slam-dunk when the proponents of the Children in Families First act began to develop their plans for orphans. Who would oppose children needing families?

Since the bill’s introduction many months ago, though, it’s been a slow motion dribble to any movement, never mind passage, and the game clock is ticking loudly.

Recently the website, the Facebook page, and the Twitter account of CHIFF have all been noticeably silent.

Drawing from my time a while back in legislative advocacy, I am guessing that this means they are taking a new tactic, probably still lobbying on Capitol Hill, and probably considering making some concessions.They may have grown tired of having their information countered and questioned by people like me who believe, yes, children deserve families, but, no, CHIFF is not the right approach.

From the start, CHIFF has been silent on these vital issues:

  • Much needed funding for improved pre-adoption and post-adoption resources
  • Federal level legislation on “re-homing” of internationally adopted children
  • Documented cases of fraud and corruption
  • Support from the State Department
  • Support from international adult adopted persons
  • Support from international family preservation organizations
  • Support from international first parents
  • Pre- and post-placement resources, support, counseling, and information for international first parents
  • Citizenship for all international adoptees

That silence on those issues speaks volumes.

CHIFF has a few more cosponsors, but proponents have chosen not to draw attention to them publicly as they had previously done. The recent House Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Africa’s orphans was not a strategic success. The upcoming trial of International Adoption Guides via Department of Justice indictment has not helped. Court cases of adoptive parents for abuse and deaths of their internationally adopted children (Hana Williams, Hyunsu O’Callaghan, and the Barbour children are just a few examples) cast a tragic long shadow. Increasing numbers of internationally adopted children now in the US foster care system is of concern–at least, I hope it is. CHIFF is silent on that.

How about dropping international adoption from the bill, since that has been the main point of contention? CHIFF proponents have argued occasionally that the bill is not really about adoption, though that’s hard to believe, since almost all their endorsers and Executive Committee are adoption-related, and prospective and current adoptive parents are the main supporters.

Would that crowd, and the Congressional staffers and sponsors, rally and promote (through Facebook, Twitter, and their website) family preservation and reunification, instead of adoption? That would mean some $60 million for vulnerable children in adversity, not for a new bureaucracy or a small number of children who would benefit from adoption. Many more children would benefit from remaining with their families and not entering orphanages; many more mothers would not have to lose their children because of poverty.

Then perhaps we could all turn to genuinely overhauling and improving the international adoption process, with input from adult adopted persons and international first parents, not just adoption agencies and adoptive parents, and with a goal of addressing current, real needs in the adoption community.

That is something I could cheer for.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Adopt an African Child–Through US Foster Care

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It’s true. There are listings of African children (from Ethiopia and elsewhere) who are now available for adoption through the US foster care system.

Here’s the deal: these children left their first country, after their American parents had (we hope) followed all legal requirements to adopt them. They then lived with those parents, in the US, with all those adjustments of internationally adopted children. Then those parents terminated their parental rights (voluntarily or otherwise), the children ended up in foster care, and now they have to find another family.

Wow.

Since they usually become US citizens upon arrival to the United States, internationally adopted children who end up in US foster care may not be immediately or publicly identified as international adoptees. I feel confident there are plenty of other internationally adopted children (from Russia, Guatemala, Haiti, and elsewhere) who have joined the approximately 100,000 children looking for families through the US foster care system. Children in foster care spend an average of 2 years there, while reunification and adoption are considered.

About half the children in US foster care return to their families. That does not seem a possibility for these internationally adopted children: they can’t return to their original countries, and they no longer have a US family.

In other news:

Black American infants, primarily from Florida, are being placed with Canadians, ostensibly because many of the mothers don’t want their children to face the racism here in the United States.

Petitions and protests are being heard from American parents who have legal custody of children from the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is not issuing exit visas to the children, because of concerns around fraud and corruption.

The Facebook site Second Chance Adoptions has many postings about internationally adopted children from Congo, Russia, Ethiopia, and elsewhere, whose placements with their American families have disrupted, and now they need new families. These children aren’t in public foster care, and they aren’t being re-homed in a Wal-Mart parking lot. I’m not sure who has legal custody of them, but the process and expense, I imagine, for a new family will be the same as a private adoption here in the US. In these cases, though, it’s the (first set of) adoptive parents who will sign legal rights over to the (new) adoptive parents. Many of the adoptions are eligible for the adoption tax credit. I wonder how many of their first adoptions were also eligible for the tax credit.

The adoption agency behind Second Chance Adoptions is Wasatch International Adoptions, located in Utah. On their web page, they offer information about adoptions of children from the DRC, with this caveat: “Children who come into our orphanage are generally between the ages of 2-5 or 6. We do not have children who are older because we have found that older children do not adjust well to an American home and family.”

I can only how imagine how they learned that sobering bit of information.

I have a few questions, although my head is spinning.

What more evidence do we need that better pre-adoption screening and better post-adoption resources are needed?

What is the trajectory for these internationally adopted children who arrive in the US and then their adoptive placement falls apart?

Do the US adoption agencies which placed the children the first time have an ethical responsibility to the children? And the second time? What does that responsibility look like? What is their ethical responsibility to the country of origin, if not the family of origin?

How does the US foster care system deal with the needs of internationally adopted children? How are their needs different from US children born here, raised here, and placed in foster care here? Children generally end up in foster care because of abuse and neglect. The international children would likely also have experienced that either in their country of origin or here in the US or both, but have some extra losses by virtue of leaving their countries.

What is the role of racism in the lives of any of these children who are from Africa, the Caribbean, Central America, or Asia? They go from living someplace where most people look like them, and then enter the US and live with families who may not look like them at all. Maybe they live somewhere in America where few people look like them. Then they must leave that family for another family (maybe). Racism here in the US will impact them now and for their entire lives, along with whatever issues of loss and trust they may be dealing with. Meanwhile, black American children are going to Canada, where the First Nations and the Inuit have certainly had their struggles

All children deserve safe and loving families. I hope that all these children find families and healing.

What is going on with our child welfare system? Before we consider anything like the Children in Families First act, we need to resolve the many issues facing current international adoptees.

My head hurts and my heart aches. That discomfort pales beside what these children are going through.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Attacking Those Who Care for Vulnerable Children

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Who would attack the work of a pediatric nurse practitioner who has lived among the poorest of the poor in rural Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), who adopted twin Congolese girls whose mother died in childbirth, and whose organization works to keep emaciated children alive, with the hope of reuniting them with their families, rather than promoting international adoption?

International adoption–with its confluence of money, children, and inequity–can evoke terrible egotism and emotions. Adoption is of course a wonderful, valuable option for children who genuinely need families. But we have to create adoption policy with ears wide open not only to the experiences of adoptive parents, but also those of adopted people and first/birth parents.

In terms of international adoption, we need to listen as well to the voices of those in the countries from which children are adopted. Holly Mulford has on-the-ground experience in Congo. She’s the nurse practitioner I mention above. She recently wrote a powerful blog post mourning the deaths of babies who had entered the care of her organization Reeds of Hope (an allusion to Moses and the bulrushes). You can (and should) read her thoughtful post “Can family preservation programs and international adoption coexist at the same time?” here.

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Holly dared to say out loud what is an unspoken, unpopular truth in child welfare: International adoption is far easier to raise money for, and is a far more popular cause, than family preservation is.

Prospective adoptive parents are willing to raise large amounts of money, in the range of $25,000 to $40,000, to adopt one child. (Many times, the US government then reimburses them for those expenses, including airfare and hotels, via a tax credit. Read my thoughts about the tax credit here.)

International family preservation, in contrast,  is not a warm, fuzzy, or sexy issue. Strangers gave some $80,000 via  a Humans of New York story about a family hoping to adopt a child from Ethiopia. Would they have done the same if the issue was reunification of families in a poor country?

No, they would not. Despite that, many people deeply involved with keeping children not only alive but with their families continue to soldier on, working alongside some of the poorest people in the world, believing that poverty (as huge and overwhelming a problem as it is) should not be a reason for a mother or father to lose a child forever.  Imagine how $80,000 could help desperately poor families keep their children in a country such as the DRC.

According to Holly,

“Family support and reunification isn’t well understood by most traditional aid organizations, and it can be complicated. It requires a deep commitment to family preservation and the inherent dignity of all families in DRC. It demands deep respect for Congolese fathers and their families.

It is much easier to fundraise for adoptions than for family support and reunification work (following the alternative care model) — despite it being the right decision for most of the children.”

Who would turn these words into an attack? A Florida attorney who is an ardent supporter of the Children in Families First bill, and who is the legal adoptive parent of a child from the DRC, which has suspended adoptions due to fraud and corruption. Her post is here.

Then consider donating to Reeds of Hope, to further their valuable work keeping children alive, and families together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stanford Law Review: CHIFF Overlooks Best Interests of the Child

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Along with many others in the adoption community, I have written about the extensive flaws in CHIFF, the Children in Families First Act. No one disagrees that all children deserve safe, loving families. Much disagreement exists about whether CHIFF genuinely meets the problems that exist in adoption today.

A new voice has spoken about CHIFF’s deficiencies. A recent article in the Stanford Law Review by Nila Bala, a Yale Law School graduate and current Public Interest Fellow, addresses the bill’s various shortcomings.

Here are a few excerpts from “The Children in Families First Act: Overlooking International Law and the Best Interests of the Child.”

Unfortunately,…many government leaders are supporting the Children in Families First Act (CHIFF), new legislation that hopes to increase the number of international adoptions, without addressing the problems that currently exist.

CHIFF puts children at risk by weakening the Intercountry Adoption Act (IAA) and the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-Operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption, (Hague Convention), which have at least provided for some pre-adoption protections. Additionally, like the IAA, CHIFF fails to provide for post-adoption assistance.

CHIFF hopes to reappropriate about sixty million dollars per year to establish the new Bureau of Vulnerable Children and Family Security in the State Department and to establish a USAID Center for Excellence for Children in Adversity.

If millions of dollars are pumped into incentivizing intercountry adoptions, it is reasonable to expect that fraud may increase as well. Unfortunately, the bill glosses over the very real concerns of child trafficking, fraud, and corruption.

I’ve added the emphasis above. The perspective of this highly-regarded legal publication–not an adoption agency or adoptive parent–is powerful and valuable. Let’s hope our members of Congress listen closely.

Everyone agrees that children deserve families. CHIFF needs to genuinely address several existing problems: Let’s include adoptees and first parents in the conversation. Let’s provide equitable services. Let’s increase pre- and post- adoption resources. Let’s not spend $60 million without acknowledging current, painful realities around re-homing, citizenship/deportation, fraud, and corruption. Let’s emphasize family preservation first.

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Joyce Maguire Pavao Speaks Out Against CHIFF

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Dr. Joyce Maguire Pavao, the highly regarded, nationally- and internationally- known clinician, has written a thoughtful, insightful essay on the reasons she opposes the Children in Families First legislation (CHIFF). Joyce is also an adopted person. It is her perspective and experiences that should have been a core part of CHIFF from the start. Regrettably, she and other adopted adults were not consulted; their voices were excluded from the CHIFF discussions.

From her web page: Dr. Pavao has done extensive training, both nationally and internationally. She is an adjunct faculty member in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and has lectured at Harvard, Smith, Wellesley, UCLA, USC, and Antioch, among other universities. She has consulted to various public and private child welfare agencies, adoption agencies, schools, and community groups, as well as probate and family court judges, lawyers, and clergy. Additionally, she has worked closely with individuals, couples, and families with adoption-related issues, foster care issues, guardianship and kinship, as well as complex families formed through reproductive technology, single parent families, gay and lesbian families, and families through remarriage.

Please see her information about Pavao Consulting and Coaching.

Thank you, Joyce, for this powerful essay.

Reflecting on CHIFF-Children in Families First
Dr. Joyce Maguire Pavao

Most Child Welfare policies- domestic and international- make mention of the need to:
• Reunify children with birth parents
• Find kinship care placements
• Find families nearby to keep connections and continuity
• Allow for international adoption (or in large countries like US and China to allow for distant placements far from child’s origin)

All of these -in this order -are far better than institutional care for a child who deserves to be in a family first. The problem with this CHIFF legislation plan is that not enough education and funding goes into working on the first three preferences for the child, and it seems ‘easier’ and more in keeping with the ‘business’ of adoption to skip right to international.

This move is often a gateway into illegal and unethical maneuvers that provide more children, for more fees, and that pay no attention to the realities of the birth families and the child. These children are often not orphans and not without extended family and community, but become legal orphans against the knowledge or will of their people.
It is disconcerting that many proponents of CHIFF are worried about a reduced rate of children available for waiting adoptive parents. The adoptive parents are as much the victim of this unfortunate situation, as are the birth families and the children waiting.

There will always be children who authentically need families, and families who- once they are educated -realize that in today’s world everyone can find each other, and the truth of the origins of every child will be revealed to their child eventually.

Don’t we want our children to feel that their adoptions are just and ethical?

Don’t we want that to be at the core as they deal with all of the challenges they will encounter?

It is far from anti adoption to want to curtail the huge industry that is a part of international adoption (and sometimes domestic), and that sometimes involves child trafficking and other illegal and unethical practices.
It seems important and very pro adoption to care about these children and these issues:
To think about the rights of the child and of the Hague convention
To think about the infant or child in each adoption, as he/she will later in life be making sense of what has happened in his/her life.
My famous quote from years ago is “adoption should be about finding families for children and not about finding children for families.” This holds true.

The child welfare people finding the families must be sure that efforts have been made to reunify, locate kin , find proximal families, before moving to international searches for families for that child. It is the highest order of honoring our adoptions of old (and I am an old adopted person) by being ethical, legal, and compassionate of the child in current adoptions, and by making efforts for connections to be preserved for that child.

Children should be in families first – their original family, the families of kin, the families nearby and finally – if all else truly fails after true searching -then in families waiting in other countries.

This work should be about the child, but not just the infant or child on the present, rather the whole person that child will become, who will grow and change and wonder and grieve.

We have to stop seeing adoption as a business and an industry or a mission, and realize that we are manipulating individuals and families, we are causing a great deal of loss, trauma, pain and distrust in doing things in ways that are not meant to be, and in ways that both physically and emotionally cut the child off from connections that will be healing and important to their entire family, which will include both family by birth and by adoption.

I am far from anti adoption. I am a product of it- and it has happened for centuries. There are so many people living in adoption throughout the world, and because adoption will continue to happen forever, it must be the right thing. It must be ethical, legal, just, compassionate and transparent – for the sake of the child.
4/1/2014

My Letter to Congressional Reps: Thank You for Not Co-sponsoring CHIFF

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The fallout and division that is CHIFF did not have to happen. Tremendous common ground exists: who disagrees that children deserve safe, loving families?

Unfortunately, the folks who crafted CHIFF (Children in Families First, S. 1530 and H.R. 4143) did so in a vacuum, excluding significant constituents: international adoptees and original parents. That short-sighted decision has come back repeatedly to haunt them. Perhaps they felt the rhetoric of “children deserve families” is enough to bring everyone on board. It is not.

Instead, there is an increasing amount of pushback from many corners of the international adoption community, a mounting demand not for shallow rhetoric but for genuine, thoughtful policies that meet currently existing needs.

The legislation, introduced in the House over a year ago and the Senate 6 months ago, has failed to gain traction. It has incurred much controversy, perhaps due to its evangelical proponents, perhaps due to its many supporters who oppose gay people as adoptive parents, perhaps due to its unclear cost (a “modest portion” of $2 billion), perhaps due to its decision to censor those who disagree or question them, or perhaps due to the concern that aid provided by CHIFF to other countries will be tied to the country’s participation in intercountry adoption. For whatever reasons, it has been hammered from many sides, seemingly to the surprise of its supporters.

I’ve been among those criticizing CHIFF. I’m an adoptive parent, and I deeply believe that all children deserve families. I believe in adoption, when it is done in an ethical, transparent way that genuinely meets the needs of all involved, not just at placement, but over lifetimes.

Could this controversy, criticism, and lack of traction have been avoided? Perhaps, had CHIFF proponents reached out to the international adoption community in a meaningful way. Perhaps, had they held hearings on current, glaring needs of internationally adopted adults and children, and of marginalized international first parents. Perhaps, had they insisted on better pre- and post- adoption services, with equity, access, and affordability for everyone.

I am sending a letter to my US Senators and Representative, thanking them for not co-sponsoring CHIFF, explaining my concerns, and providing suggestions for better international adoption policies. Here it is:

As an adoptive parent, I want to thank you for not co-sponsoring the Children in Families First legislation (CHIFF, S. 1530 and
 H.R. 1403). CHIFF’s intent, from their web page, is this: “We protect children by preserving families, reunifying families or creating families through adoption.” Everyone agrees that children around the globe deserve safe, loving families: it’s a laudable goal. Family preservation, domestic adoption, and international adoption are ways to achieve that goal, especially for vulnerable children. I am the parent of four children through adoption: 2 sons from the US, twin daughters from Ethiopia. My children, all in their 20’s now, are my life’s greatest blessings.

CHIFF, unfortunately, ignores many important realities of international adoption.

It fails to include the voices of adult adoptees and of first/original international parents, the people affected most directly by this legislation and the most knowledgeable about international adoption and family preservation.  CHIFF proponents appear to have made no effort in seeking out these groups, especially prior to introducing the legislation. Indeed, the main supporters of the legislation (as listed on the CHIFF webpage) are adoption agencies and adoption attorneys, who have a significant economic stake in increasing the numbers of international adoption, and do not have expertise in family preservation. Internationally adopted adults and international first parents should have a significant place at the table of any international adoption policy. That is not the case with CHIFF.

Several current, glaring problems in the international adoption community must be solved before CHIFF is even considered.

One example is that the US government currently does not provide citizenship for all international adoptees. Adoptees who were brought to the US for the purpose of adoption by US citizens prior to 2000 have been deported to Brazil, Korea, India, Germany, and elsewhere. It is regrettable that CHIFF proponents, especially adoption agencies, have been unable to move the citizenship legislation, which would affect adoptees they placed years ago, and who are now promoting legislation to expand international adoption. I hope that all supporters of CHIFF would be deeply motivated to demand the US citizenship legislation for all adoptees now, in the name of fairness and integrity, and well before advancing an enormous piece of expensive, controversial legislation.

Another example that CHIFF does not address is the huge, gaping need for genuine, rigorous pre-adoption preparation, and for substantive, effective, accessible post-adoption counseling and resources here in the United States. Surely we can craft adoption policy far better than CHIFF, in terms of preparation and counseling of birth/first parents and of adoptive parents prior to adoption, and in terms of post-adoption resources and services for everyone. 

 I’d like to see some degree of equity in counseling and services (before and after placement) for international birth parents as compared to US adoptive parents. One possibility is re-vamping the US adoption tax credit as one means of doing this. No new money–just an equitable, sane distribution of revenue (billions of dollars) that the US federal government is already providing to adoptive parents. So far, the US has given some $7 billion in tax credits, primarily for international and private adoptions, and a fractional amount for the original intent of US foster care adoptions.

 A third example: CHIFF does not address the grim cloud of corruption and fraud over international adoption. Many US families have brought children to the US only to find out the children have families who wanted to keep them, but were trafficked or otherwise brought to the US in unethical circumstances. Adult adoptees have traveled back to their home countries and learned very different stories from what the agencies told their adoptive parents. 

CHIFF minimally acknowledges the corruption that exists in international adoption. The fraud and corruption should be acknowledged, researched thoroughly, and (ideally) eliminated.

 Fourth, CHIFF does not address the tragic and disturbing practice of “re-homing” here in the US, recently cited in Reuters’ articles, which looked at re-homing practices over 5 years. Better preparation and better post-adopt services (including respite, training, access to therapists who understand adoption, trauma, and related issues) surely would have prevented some of these complex cases.

 Fifth, while CHIFF does not meaningfully address current needs here in the United States regarding international adoption policy, it would use USAID and other taxpayer money to increase international adoptions, to create new bureaucracy within the State Department, and to establish new programs around the globe. The CHIFF web page is decidedly vague on the amount: “a modest part of $2 billion” is the amount listed.

Before anything like CHIFF goes forward, before we use additional funds and resources to increase the numbers of internationally adopted children, we need, at a minimum, the following:

▪                Good data, solid research, and substantive information about current realities in the US international adoption community.

▪                Good data, solid research, and substantive information about fraud and corruption in international adoption practices.

▪                Inclusion and buy-in from adult international adoptees and from international birth/original parents, and not solely from adoptive parents, adoption agencies, and adoption attorneys.

▪                Funding and training for pre-adoption and post-adoption resources that are effective and accessible.

▪                Legislation and/or other resources that provides guidance and oversight for families in crisis, with transparency for adoption disruptions and services for children.

 I believe in adoption, when it is done in a transparent, ethical way. I believe in equitable services for all those involved in adoption, including original (birth) parents. I believe we need to address current problems in the international adoption community before undertaking huge new programs around the globe.

 CHIFF excludes vital stakeholders, is expensive, and ignores genuine needs in the US and international adoption community. It should not move forward. Surely we can do far better than this, and truly meet the needs of vulnerable children and families.

 Thank you again, for not co-sponsoring this legislation.

 Sincerely,

Maureen McCauley Evans