Tag Archives: National Council for Adoption

National Council for Adoption Releases New Report on Adoptive Parents

Posted on by
3

The National Council for Adoption recently released, in their words, “the largest survey ever conducted of adoptive parents.” You can read the results here: “Profiles in Adoption: A Survey of Adoptive Parents and Secondary Data Analysis of Federal Adoption Files.”

Here are a few of my observations, and, as an adoptive parent, I hope that adoptees and birth parents (and adoptee- and birth parent-researchers) will weigh in.

The NCFA survey was funded by the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, and by Gift of Adoption, which has dispensed some $14 million in adoption assistance grants to adoptive parents.

Responses were from 4,212 adoptive parents—representing 4,135 households and parents to 6,608 adopted individuals—residing in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. These adoptions occurred between 1966 and August 2021, with 74.9% completed since 2010, including 55.9% since 2015.

90% of the respondent adoptive parents were white. (Latine/x 3%; Black 2%; Asian/Asian Pacific Islander 2%, American Indian/Alaskan Native 1%; Multiracial 1%, with 0.6% reporting “other.”)

Whether private infant adoption, intercountry adoption, or adoption from foster care, around 80% of the adoptive parents are Christian/Catholic.

In terms of income, 72% of adoptive parents in private domestic adoption had an income over $75,000. The percentage was 62% for intercountry adoptive parents and 54% for parents who adopted from foster care.

In terms of education, 81% of adoptive parents in private domestic adoption had a bachelor’s degree or higher. The percentage was 84% for intercountry adoptive parents and 63% for parents who adopted from foster care.

The survey looks at Special Needs in adoption, and, astonishingly to me, on page 40 has a category titled “Mental Retardation.” Since Congress passed Rosa’s Law in 2010, the preferred designation is “intellectual disability.”

The survey does not note the ages of adopted children at the time of adoption, nor of the current ages of the adoptees. I believe that information would have been useful to the analysis.

The survey did not shy from using what some in the adoption community see as language of commodification: “Adoptive parents were asked five questions related to their satisfaction with adoption. Overall, adoptive parents expressed very significant satisfaction.” (Some in the adoption community see this phrasing as akin to “product or purchase satisfaction.”)

Indeed, here are the “Key Takeaways for Adoptive Parents’ Satisfaction:

• A large majority of adoptive parents find their role to be rewarding and satisfying.

• With the perspective of lived experience, adoptive parents report they would still make the same decision to adopt their child.”

Adoptive parents of International adoptions were also asked about their satisfaction with Intercountry Adoption Service Providers. Adoptive parents through private domestic adoption and through foster care were not asked (or results were not included) about their satisfaction with their attorneys or other service providers.

There is much to be parsed from the survey answers regarding race. As previously noted, 90% of the respondent parents are white. In the case of transracial adoptions, the survey says “A large majority of adoptive parents who have a child of a different race/ethnicity seek to participate in activities to incorporate elements of the child’s race, ethnicity, and culture.” While that may be a basic first step, it’s hardly a strong example of much needed anti-racist education. The words “racism,” “colorblindness,” and “anti-racism” do not appear in the report. (Here is one example of the perspective of Black and brown adoptees on how their white adoptive parents handled race: “I know my parents love me, but they don’t love my people.”)

From the section in the survey on Future Research: “The National Council For Adoption views this report as just Part One of a three-part series examining profiles in adoption. There is no single survey, focus group, or data set that can tell us everything we would like to know about adoption. In Part One, we heard from adoptive parents. We also intend to hear from birth parents and adopted individuals in upcoming research reports. Taken together, the three reports in this series will give us a fuller picture of adoption.”

I find it striking and not surprising that the first report is on adoptive parents, the people who hold and have held the most power in adoption policy. (One could argue that white, financially secure, well educated Christians have long held the most power in our society overall.)

The two authors of the report are Ryan Hanlon, the executive director of NCFA, and Matthew Quade, associate professor of business management at Baylor University. Both men are adoptive parents, and both hold PhDs.

I look forward to reading the NCFA reports on birth parents and adoptees, as to the numbers of respondents, the demographics (race, age, education, income, etc.), their perspective on “satisfaction,” whether they would still make the same decisions (adoptees of course rarely have agency in the adoption decision), and noting who funds the surveys of adoptees and birth parents. I hope the authors of the next two reports are themselves adopted persons and birth parents. I also hope the survey-takers contact the birth/first parents of international adoptees, and I look forward to reading those results.

I look forward to a time when all children have safe, loving families, and when children are not removed from their families of origin due to poverty, economic imbalance, or systemic racism. I also look forward to the equitable distribution of funding and of pre- and post-adoption services to all birth parents (including International birth families). I especially look forward to deeper, well funded, accessible, and equitable advocacy for family preservation.

When Adoptees’ Birth Countries Are Torn By War

Posted on by
Reply

When an international adoptee’s country of origin (birth country, homeland, Motherland) is torn by war or other horrific tragedies, the impact on the adoptee is, I’d think, powerful and complicated.

Here is a thoughtful, poignant essay by Katya Reach, a Russian-Ukrainian adoptee. The essay is called “Caught in the Middle.”

An excerpt:

“I look to my left and mourn the suffering of the displaced Ukrainian people who I hav personal connections with…I look to my right and see my very own birth family also suffering and hiding for dear life in bomb shelters and basements…”

Katy’s essay was posted on Facebook on Inter Country Adoption News, a valuable resource for anyone interested in international adoption news, especially from the perspective of adoptees.

I am grateful that Katya decided to write and publish her essay, because it is so critical to hear from adoptees on such an important subject.

The National Council for Adoption on March 16 held a free webinar “Supporting people in the adoption community with roots in Russia and Ukraine.” Their website notes that “As the crisis has unfolded in Ukraine, NCFA is aware that adopted individuals with roots in Ukraine and Russia are grieving and grappling with how to process these events.” They also posted a list of resources for the adoptees and their families; this link will direct you to the resources and to the taped webinar.

All of that is beneficial. My heart is with these adoptees and their families, here and in Ukraine and Russia.

Why, though, has NCFA done nothing like this for Ethiopian adoptees, whose country has been engaged in a devastating civil war since November 2020?

No webinar. No list of resources. No panel of experts “to provide guidance and clinical expertise for navigating this challenging time.”

Why is that?

I wrote about this puzzling discrepancy here. I have also heard that the Washington Post is writing an article about how the war has affected Russian and Ukrainian adoptees, and again I say: that is great, valuable, and needed.

I wish that Ethiopian adoptees, and their families in Ethiopia and around the world, also were considered worthy of coverage.

And of course I wish, first and foremost, that there will be peace.

Is There Hope via the State Department Around International Adoption?

Posted on by
4

The U.S. State Department, responsible for the processing of thousands of international adoptions, had the audacity, courage, wherewithal, and optimism to hold a conference on adoption that includes not just the usual adoption agency folks and adoptive parents, but (wait for it) international, transracial adoptees and birth parents. Well done.

I was among those invited to the U.S. State Department’s symposium on “Strengthening the Practice of International Adoption.” So was my daughter Aselefech Evans, an Ethiopian adoptee. Neither of us were able to attend, in large part because we weren’t sure when Aselefech’s twin sister would give birth to her baby girl: the due date was September 7.

I am thrilled beyond words about my new beautiful granddaughter, who arrived on September 5. Everyone is doing well. Had Baby Aya notified us of her plans to arrived in the world, I might have joined the fascinating group invited by State. Oh to be a fly on those walls.

The symposium began yesterday and concludes later today. The agenda included topics such as caring for children in adversity, best practices in adoption, and the government’s role in intercountry adoption. There was a panel yesterday with adoptive parents, international adoptees, birth parents, and adoption service providers: I heard that was a lively conversation.

I am heartened by the fact that several adult adoptees are attending, speaking, and writing about the symposium. The list includes Dr. JaeRan Kim, who blogs brilliantly at Harlow’s Monkey, and Reshma McLintock of the powerful documentary Calcutta Is My Mother. Claudia Corrigan D’Arcy, the powerhouse behind Musings of the Lame: Exposing Adoption Truths, shared her perspective as a birth mother. How wonderful it would be if there were even more birth parents presenting, especially international ones, who are among the most marginalized voices in adoption.

Some of the usual folks such as the National Council for Adoption are also there. NCFA is not a marginalized group by any means. They’ve been mad at folks like me (who advocated against CHIFF) and particularly at the State Department, whom NCFA blames for the decline in adoptions.

One of the ways to assess an organization’s commitment to a cause is to see how their leadership reflects the cause. NCFA has, as best I can tell, one biracial adoptee on its Board of Directors, and no adoptees of color on staff. I don’t think there are any international adoptees at all on either staff or Board, never mind any international adoptees adopted at older ages. Both the Board and the staff are remarkably dominated by white people. A couple of them were adopted at birth; the Board chair was adopted, in (I’m guessing) the early 1950’s, when adoption practice was very different from today. He was a good friend of Bill Pierce’s, who some of us remember well. The current executive director of NCFA is an adoptive parent. (If I am incorrect about the transracial and international adoptees on staff or Board, NCFA, please let me know and I will correct my errors.)

I digress about NCFA because of the contrast with State’s decision to reach out intentionally to international, transracial adoptees and birth parents, not just agencies and adoptive parents. I find it unfortunate that State had Laura Ingraham, the Fox News show host, as a speaker. She’s the adoptive parent of children from Guatemala and Russia. She’s also known for describing the US-Mexico border detention facilities as “essentially summer camps” for migrant children, among other controversial remarks. In her speech yesterday, Ingraham suggested that the children entering at the border should enter the U.S. adoption system. I find this view horrifying for a number of reasons, and I understand Ingraham received some serious pushback.

I hope that the need for citizenship for all international adoptees received the attention it deserves. Take a look at Adoptees For Justice and Adoptee Rights Campaign for more information. I look forward to hearing more about how the issue was addressed at State’s conference.

International adoptions have great complexity. I think we are beginning to move away from the traditional narratives of adoptive parents and adoption agencies, and genuinely inviting and listening to international, transracial adoptees in regard to adoption policies. We need to do a much better job of inviting and listening to international birth parents as well. I’m not sure I would have predicted that the State Department would be taking a leadership role in bringing disparate voices together for “Strengthening Practice for the Future of Intercountry Adoptions,” as the conference is titled. Change is definitely in the air.

May all children have loving, safe families. May all of us keep working to make that so.

Four International Adoption Agencies Lose Accreditation Status

Posted on by
Reply

Update: Another international adoption agency, Chinese Children Adoption International (CCAI), has had its accreditation temporarily suspended, according to a March 15 email from the U.S. State Department.

The US State Department announced today that two international adoption agencies (Journeys of the Heart and La Vida International) have failed to renew their Council on Accreditation (COA) accreditation under the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption. State also announced that Voice for International Development and Adoption (VIDA) has had its COA accreditation cancelled, and Adopt Abroad Inc has been temporarily suspended by COA.

That’s a lot of loss in international adoption business. Is it a trend? An augur?

COA had announced last October that it was no longer going to accredit adoption agencies under the Hague Convention. The State Department has been working with a new accreditor, IAAME, which is supposed to be up and running soon. IAAME’s website can be viewed here. There has been a lot of tension among IAAME, the adoption community, and the State Department over the accreditation process and its costs. The news today that four agencies have lost or not sought renewal of accreditation is daunting. It arguably decreases the pool of adoption agencies who will be accredited under IAAME, and that could have an impact on international adoptions, as well as the costs overall and the work of the new accreditor.

State Department announcement about Journeys of the Heart and La Vida International

State Department list of agencies debarred or cancelled for Hague (needs to be updated)

National Council For Adoption information about advocacy on accreditation

Article  “Tension Between State Department, Accreditor over Intercountry Adoptions”

COA website information about accreditation 

Who Is Responsible for the Decline in International Adoptions?

Posted on by
12

The U.S. State Department lays the blame on adoptive parents and adoption agencies. The adoption agencies, per the National Council on Adoption, say the decline is due to overly restrictive regulations and anti-adoption advocates. The voices we are not hearing enough of in this discussion are the birth/first parents and the adoptees themselves.

Last week, the State Department released figures showing the ongoing decline in numbers of children being placed to the United States for international adoption: 5372 children in FY 2016. You can read the report here.

The State Department cited three main reasons for the decline: adoptive parents failing to send post-adoption reports to the children’s country of origin; the incidences of adopted children being re-homed; and unethical practices by adoption agencies.

Post-Adoption Reports

The reports are a reasonable requirement. Sending countries want to know the outcome of children sent abroad for adoption, and adoptive parents are supposed to send the reports. Different countries have different requirements, which are essentially unenforceable once the adoption is full and final. The adoptive parents may have an ethical obligation, but their compliance is subject to their willingness. “Several countries have conditioned the resumption of intercountry adoptions on receiving post adoption reports from parents who previously adopted children from that county,” according to the State Department.

I’d be curious as to whether State has statistics on compliance, or has done research on why parents do not send the reports in. I’d guess a few reasons: Parents have so much going on with family life that the reports fall to the wayside. The parents are mad at the agency and refuse to work with them once the adoption is done. The parents don’t believe the country will ever read the reports. The parents don’t care about whether their failure to send reports will affect future adoptions. The parents are struggling with the child (or have disrupted the adoption, or have re-homed the child) but don’t want the country to know.

Some international adoption agencies have suggested to adoptive parents that the reports would also be sent to the birth/first parents. The birth/first parents may have been told they would receive reports. When the agency failed to get the reports to the families, which anecdotally I have heard many times, parents may have stopped sending them. Some send reports directly to the birth/first family, but not to the government.

Another aspect is the country of origin’s ability to maintain the post-adoption information in an archival, accessible way. That is, a country like China, Korea, or Ethiopia would potentially have received thousands of reports over many years. Does the government have the interest and the infrastructure to file and maintain the reports? Do they scan them and keep them well-organized?  The reports from the US are in English, and I doubt they would be translated into national or local languages. It is unclear to me whether the birth/first parents would have any access to the reports. However, I would argue there is an ethical obligation for the country of origin to provide it to the birth/first parents.

Unregulated Custody Transfer (UCT)

Unregulated Custody Transfer is a benign sounding phrase, but is frightening in its manifestation. The State Department equates UCT with “re-homing,” where adoptive parents hand over their adopted children, with little or no legal process or safeguards, to other people. It has happened more often than anyone would like to think, sometimes making the news, sometimes conducted in an underground. Reuters produced a significant report on the problem. Many US states have begun enacting laws and policies to reduce re-homing. The State Department has a UCT Working Group focused on “strategic for preventing UCT and for responding to UCT situations when they occur.”

Prevention, of course, is the best approach: better pre-adopt preparation, and better post-adopt resources and services.

Internationally adopted children also end up in US foster care, a legal means of moving a child to a new family. Some are listed on Second Chance, a program of Wasatch Adoptions. Both of these (US foster care and Second Chance) are technically not “re-homing,” because they are done through legal channels. Still, a great deal of controversy exists around internationally adopted children ending up in US foster care or with Second Chance.

There is, of course, an important link between the post-adoption reports and UCT, foster care, and Second Chance. Parents probably do not send reports when their children are moved from their original adoptive placement, whether legally or illegally. “Foreign countries frequently raise concerns about UCT whenever information about a child’s whereabouts is unavailable. These concerns impact their willingness to maintain intercountry adoption as an option for children,” says the State Department.

Adoption Service Provider Conduct

This issue–illegal or unethical practices by some Adoption Service Providers (ASPs) and about countries’ ability to appropriately monitor adoption activities–is far-reaching in time and complexity. The US Justice Department’s indictment of International Adoption Guides, and the subsequent guilty pleas by the top staff, for bribery and fraud is a well-known example. Other adoption agencies have been under scrutiny as well, some closing suddenly, even with full COA accreditation (i.e., Christian World Adoptions). European Adoption Consultants, an international adoption agency in Ohio, was raided in February by the FBI, with allegations around fraud and trafficking.

Agency workers in both the U.S. and in sending countries have been accused of misconduct. Facebook has regular comments in adoptive parent groups about false information about their children’s histories; adult adoptees have traveled to their home countries and found parents they had been told were dead, or mothers who had been deceived into placing their children in an orphanage. There’s no question that adoption agencies and their staffs have been under greater scrutiny in recent years than ever before, in part because of more adopted persons’ and birth/first parents’ voices being heard.

The State Department proposed new regulations last September that would attempt to address some problems in international adoption, around accreditation and other areas. Adoption agencies have been actively opposed to the proposed regs, saying that they are unnecessary, expensive, and rigid. Chuck Johnson, the head of the National Council on Adoption, told the Associated Press in January that “it was possible that under the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump, the State Department might adopt policies more to the liking of the adoption agencies.” It’s still early in the Trump Administration to see exactly what direction adoption policy will take, though the State Department’s comments on the newly released adoption numbers give us some sense. Update: While the State Department refers to the proposed regs in the narrative about the statistics, including saying they are “reviewing comments from the public on the proposed regulations,” the regs were withdrawn by State in early April. I’ll post more information when I get it.

In any case, adoption agencies frequently see administrative and regulatory policies to be more responsible for the decline in adoptions than the three issues cited by State.

Photo © Maureen McCauley Evans

The bottom line: A whole lot of work needs to be done, by a whole lot of folks (State Department, Office of Children’s Issues, adoption agencies, adoptive parents, state and federal legislators, international governments) if international adoption is going to continue in any meaningful way. Right now, there is a fairly strong current of anti-adoption momentum, via groups who view adoption as equivalent to trafficking as well as vocal individuals, primarily adult adoptees, who are demanding change.

And *if* international adoption is going to continue, adoption agencies and the U.S. State Department should make equity in pre-adoption preparation and post-adoption services to birth/first parents. Those 5372 children had families–we know that few children are actual full orphans, and many have grandparents and siblings. The birth/first families deserve excellent adoption services as much as U.S. adoptive parents do, to make sure adoption is the best option, and to encourage family preservation whenever possible.

The Long Road to Sentencing For International Adoption Guides: Still Not There

Posted on by
3

In February 2014, four employees of International Adoption Guides were indicted by the US Department of Justice for bribery, falsification of documents, and more, based on a multiyear investigation of Ethiopian adoptions. James Harding, Mary Mooney, and Alisa Bivens, the three American IAG defendants, all pled guilty to various counts about two years ago. They are still awaiting sentencing, three years after the indictment. The one Ethiopian defendant, Haile Mekonnen, as best I know is still in Ethiopia and has not been in court.

According to the 2014 DOJ press release, ” ‘The defendants are accused of obtaining adoption decrees and U.S. visas by submitting fraudulent adoption contracts signed by orphanages that never cared for or housed the children, thus undermining the very laws that are designed to protect the children and families involved,’ said Acting Assistant Attorney General Raman. ‘As today’s indictments show, the Justice Department, alongside its partners both here and abroad, will respond vigorously to these criminal schemes and will act to protect the many families and children who rely on the integrity of the adoption process.’ ”

Behind that legal language is astonishing loss and heartache for many children and their families in Ethiopia and in the United States.

img_3577

I recently came across a website, justiceformary.weebly.com, which seems to be written by Mary Mooney. While it mostly has password protected pages, it has a long list of the court documents from 2014 to 2016, including the plea agreements from the three defendants, as well as transcripts of several court appearances. The site mentions a court date in January 2017, but I have yet to see anything to confirm that.

In May 2016, the government recommended a sentence for Mooney of 51 to 60 months of incarceration, per this Memorandum in Aid of Sentencing.

A sentencing hearing was held in August 2016.

In November 2016, there was an order filed on Mary Mooney‘s case. My understanding, as a non-lawyer, is that in January 2015 Mooney had made a plea agreement: she pled guilty to making false statements for the agency’s Council on Accreditation process, and the government then dropped other charges, including those related to Ethiopia.

Mooney could, however, face a conviction on charges related to adoptions from Kazakhstan. Mooney’s co-defendant James Harding had operated World Partners Adoption, located in Georgia; he is an adoptive parent of children from Kazakhstan. WPA lost its accreditation to handle international adoptions in 2008. Harding and Mooney then arranged for Harding to take over at IAG, which still had accreditation at that time. Apparently IAG also has charges against it in relation to adoptions from Kazakstan, and Mooney could face a conviction as a result of those.

Any lawyers who want to weigh in would be welcomed. It is not clear to me whether this means that Mooney will face no punishment in regard to the bribery and falsification of documents in Ethiopia, but that could be correct.

Every month or so, I have called the office of Judge David Norton in South Carolina, the judge handling the case. A pleasant court official consistently tells me that, no, there’s nothing on the sentencing yet. He can’t comment on whether that’s unusual, or on any reason as to why sentencing would not have taken place. He says he will send my inquiry on to someone who might have more information. I’ve never heard anything back.

Unless I’ve missed it, I have not seen any outcry about this case from adoption agencies or from the National Council on Adoption.

The three defendants are, I believe, not in jail. I understand and applaud the value of a full and fair legal process. Still, I can’t help but feel deep disappointment in the slowness of this case, especially when the defendants pled guilty. Will the final sentencing be minimal, with the defendants getting jail time reduced?

I also can’t help but feel this long delay for sentencing is a slap in the face of the Ethiopian adoptees brought here via lies and deception. They have gone through so much, as have their families, in Ethiopia and in the US. What is the message for them about the American court system?

Where is the justice for the innocent victims?

 

 

The Questions and Losses When an Adoption Agency Closes

Posted on by
7

An Open Letter to Adoption Service Providers, the Joint Council on International Children’s Services, the National Council For Adoption, and the Council on Accreditation

Adoption is so much more than placement. The ethical responsibility of providers and practitioners stretches out for decades. 

Increasing numbers of adoption agencies are closing these days, especially those working in international adoption. Many of these agencies were paid and certified members of  JCICS, NCFA, and COA. Many international agencies have moved from country to country over the years, opening and closing programs (Romania, Guatemala, Uganda, Honduras, Ethiopia, etc.) While there are many reasons for the moves and closures, the only consequence most people think of is that fewer children will find families. That is  significant, but there are several other huge concerns.

I am writing today to ASP’s, JCICS, NCFA, and COA to better understand.

How are adult adoptees and first/birth families notified that an agency is closing or is gone? Adoptive families are notified via emails from the agency, or through Facebook groups, or through clicking on a web site and finding it….gone. How are the birth/first families, especially in other countries, notified? What happens when people search for information a year or a decade after an agency has closed?

What happens to the records? How does an adoptee track down his or her agency records when the agency (Christian World Adoption, Adoption Advocates International (WA), Adoption Ark, International Adoption Guides, etc., etc.) shuts its doors? Agency closures represent thousands of adoptions. How would a non-English-speaking birth/first parent with limited Internet access get any records about the placement?

When adoption agencies close their doors, or close a country program, what ethical responsibilities does the agency have to the birth/first families? Adoptive families and adoptees can find (admittedly often limited) post-adoption resources even after an agency closes: therapists, online information, magazines, other adoption agencies, conferences, parent groups, adoptee groups, Facebook groups. US first/birth parents have increasingly strong voices and roles in adoption policy, though they deserve much more recognition. What are the policies on post-adoption services for international first/birth parents?

Sometimes adoption agencies serve as liaisons between adoptive parents and birth parents. Letters and photos might be exchanged via the agency, for example. A birth mother might call the adoption agency on her child’s birthday, to see if there is an update. What happens to these liaison services when the agency closes?

I know of a birth mom in Washington state for whom Adoption Advocates International  was the liaison between her and the adoptive family. They do not know each other’s names. The agency had been forwarding photo updates twice a year from the adoptive parents to the birth mom. The child is about 10. In March 2014, AAI closed. The birth mom got no notice that AAI was closing. She doesn’t know how or whether she will ever hear about her daughter again. If anyone can help with this, please contact me: Maureen@LightOfDayStories.com.

An adoption agency that is closing often hands over active or pending cases to another adoption agency. Does that second agency also handle cases such as liaison work? What are the ethical and legal responsibilities of the second agency to the families of the first agency, especially over time?

Adoption agencies, JCICS, NCFA, and COA:  In the spirit of transparency and integrity, what happens not just legally, but ethically, after an agency closes? What are the thoughtful, enforceable, pragmatic policies to help adoptees and birth/first families?

If such policies do not currently exist, what are the strategies in place to create them? Who is at the table to create these policies: adoption agency staff, adoptive parents, adopted adults, and first/birth parents?

Some of you may wonder why I’ve included the Joint Council on International Children’s Services in this open letter. Didn’t they close back in June? Wasn’t that announced at the NCFA-JCICS conference? Why is there no mention on their website of closing, no announcement, no public disclosure at all? They still accept donations. They still accept donations. Are they still offering services? Thus, I decided to include them, and look forward to the response.

 

Joint Council on International Children’s Services is Closing

Posted on by
10

Today at the “Putting Family First” conference of the National Council for Adoption and  the Joint Council on International Children’s Services, it was announced that Joint Council will close. There will be no merger with NCFA. JCICS agencies will be eligible for a membership with NCFA.

Some people will be rejoicing at this news. Others will be sad that the organization is closing.

Certainly there were some clues about this. The decline in international adoptions has meant a decline in business and revenues for adoption agencies. Many have closed. I’d argue that assisted reproductive technologies and surrogacies have meant that people who otherwise would adopt internationally are no longer doing so. The indictments, lawsuits, and bad press about agencies have not helped. JCICS did not undertake a search for a new executive director after Tom DiFilipo was fired. The JCICS Board of Directors had dwindled to 5 people.

We all wonder what this means for the future of international adoption. Children still need families, and adoptions need to be done with integrity and transparency. I’ve long said we are in a perfect storm of adoption policy and practice. There could be some significant opportunities for genuine change. Here’s hoping the voices of adult adoptees and of international first parents are at the forefront.

Predicting the Future of Intercountry Adoption at the JCICS-NCFA 2015 Conference

Posted on by
1

Yesterday I attended the “Putting Families First” conference held by the Joint Council on International Children’s Services (JCICS) and the National Council For Adoption (NCFA). My workshop proposal for the conference, “Finding Common Ground in Policies and Practice, which included three adult adoptee panelists, had been rejected, but I was invited to participate on a panel titled “Predicting the Future of Intercountry Adoption.”

The audience was standing room only. I’d guess about 100 people attended.

Adoption professionals cite the Hague Convention, the Council on Accreditation, and the Department of State as reasons for the decline in the number of international adoptions. I argued that adoptions have declined because of the following:

  • Fraud and corruption.
  • Reports of maltreatment and abuse of international adoptees.
  • The role of money in adoption: high costs to adopt; the economic imbalance between adoptive parents and first families; the adoption tax credit; online fundraisers for adoption; adoptive parents’ financial contributions to first families after adoption; and more.
  • Religion: complications and misunderstandings of Christianity, Biblical interpretations, “savior complexes,” and more.
  • Social media: bloggers and twitter campaigns, especially by adult adoptees.
  • Increasing awareness of the need for family preservation: the economics suggest far more children could be helped that way (and kept out of orphanages) than through intercountry adoption.

I argued that if you are responsible for policies that involve children of color and immigrants, you must welcome, instigate, and engage in the complicated conversations around race, racism, systemic oppression, and white privilege.

All of these issues should be the subject by themselves of future conferences and workshops by JCICS and NCFA.

I asked these questions:

Given that there are hundreds of thousands of adult international adoptees, why are so few adoptees involved in adoption advocacy?

Please pause over that question.

Why do adoption conferences and policy meetings have almost exclusively western white people, many of whom are adoptive parents?

I believe that historic marginalization of adult adoptees is the reason. I’d argue that it’s because their voices and experiences have been marginalized in the past. From my speech: “The traditional narrative has been gratitude and integration. The adoption community, dominated by adoptive parents, has not always wanted to hear the struggles and the grief of many adoptees and first families.

Many adult adoptees do not want to express any unhappiness for fear of hurting their adoptive parents, or of being dismissed as ungrateful. That said, many adult adoptees are speaking out publicly now, creating new organizations, criticizing agencies, using social media, and publishing books. It makes no sense to ignore them. If international adoption is going to continue, adoptees—the activists, the academics, the writers, the therapists, the bloggers, the researchers, the playwrights, the poets, the artists–need to be robustly invited into development of policies and practices. They are not going away. Until they have a place at the table, international adoption will continue to decline.”

Adoptions will also decline unless the voices and experiences of international first families are documented, preserved, and shared in a meaningful way, anytime that there are policy or practice discussions. Their absence at those discussions speaks volumes about whose perspective is most valued in international adoption.

Would we be okay with a conference on Christianity that had only a few Christians attending? A conference on social work that had no social workers? Why are we okay with adoption conferences and policy meetings that are missing significant segments of the adoption community?

In terms of predictions, here are my thoughts:

  • Adoptions will continue to decline unless adult adoptees and first families are included in conferences and policy discussions in advocacy groups, Congress, the Hague, and around the world.
  • Adoptions will continue to decline unless fraud and corruption are overtly acknowledged, not just discussed among agency workers.
  • Openness will be the norm in international adoption, and needs to be promoted by agencies as a positive development. That said, openness is complicated.
  • DNA technologies and social media will expand connections between adoptees and their birth families.
  • Most international adoptions will be for special needs children, another reason that pre- and post-adoption and resources must be strengthened.

While the conference goes on for three more days, I attended only yesterday. In a follow-up post, I will write about the topics explicitly missing from the conference workshops (i.e., assisted reproductive technologies, “re-homing”), and about an exchange regarding  adoption activists ( a term which apparently functions as a code word for “angry adoptees”) in Korea.

IMG_6403

New England winter. Photo © Maureen McCauley Evans

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Status of Child Citizenship Act Amendment

Posted on by
3

Let’s not compromise on this: Adopted children deserve the same protections as non-adopted children. These protections include safety and legal status. Congress is considering two issues related to the safety and legal status of adopted children: citizenship and re-homing.

The US, for decades, did not automatically give citizenship to internationally adopted children. These children entered the US legally and transparently. But if the adoption agencies didn’t make the citizenship process clear, or the parents failed to follow through, some adoptees did not become US citizens.

An amendment to the Child Citizenship Act, providing citizenship to all internationally adoptees prior to 2000, is currently being discussed in Congress. It has not yet been introduced. Information is available here, at Gazillion Strong. None of the adoption advocacy groups–the National Council for Adoption, the Joint Council on International Children’s Services, or the Congressional Coalition on Adoption–publicizes “citizenship for adoptees” as an active, important concern for them. Maybe it is. How would we know if we are just the public, not insiders, and there’s nothing on their websites?

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) will apparently sponsor the citizenship amendment. I hope all sponsors believe that all international adoptees deserve citizenship because, by virtue of the legal process of being adopted to the US, they are part of an American family. 

Tragically, sometimes children don’t stay with their first adoptive family. Re-homing is a big safety and legal issue. Moving adopted children from one home to another with neither legal oversight nor counseling is disturbing. Some states have passed legislation about re-homing. Federal legislation has been introduced.

If adopted children need new families, protection and legal oversight must be provided. By the same token, all internationally adopted children deserve the protection and legal oversight of citizenship. As an adoptive parent, I believe that my children are entitled to all the rights and responsibilities of other families. That’s what adoption is supposed to mean.

The retroactive citizenship amendment should provide citizenship to all international adoptees whose parents failed to get citizenship for them. That would include adoptees who have committed crimes and, because they did not get naturalized as children, are subject to deportation. Therein lies some resistance to the amendment.

US citizenship should be provided to all international adoptees because they are the legal children of US citizens. Two governments (the sending country and the US) approved the adoptions. If adoption agencies failed to make clear the importance of citizenship, or if the parents failed to get them citizenship, it is not the fault of the adoptees. The end. That’s the bottom line to me.

I hope that all those advocating for the citizenship amendment–whether adoptees, members of Congress, adoptive parents, adoption agency groups, paid lobbyists–will not founder and provide retroactive citizenship only to those without criminal records. No one is condoning crime here. The adoptees who have been convicted have served their time in the US justice system. They have not gone unpunished. I know: they wouldn’t face deportation if they hadn’t broken the law. But here’s the thing. These adoptees should have the same rights as arrested/convicted children of members of Congress, or other members of US families. The adoptees do not deserve deportation. They are our legal children, our family. Adoption gave them that status.

As we now work hard to protect minor adopted children from illicit re-homing, we must also work hard for those whose parents did not get them citizenship when they were minors. Anyone who believes in the integrity of adoption and family must stand firm on citizenship for ALL international adoptees.

If not, Congress is saying that international adoptees are not (never were) genuine family members. That’s not my idea of being an American, or of being family.

IMG_1734