Samoan Adoptees Restitution Fund Payments Temporarily Cut

By on 6-02-2011 in Focus on Children, Karen Banks, Samoa, Scott Banks

Samoan Adoptees Restitution Fund Payments Temporarily Cut

“Scott and Karen Banks, who operated Focus on Children, were ordered to pay $85,000 into the Samoan Adoptees Restitution Fund to help some 80 children —including 66 placed with U.S. families — maintain contact with their birth parents.

The Banks, who now live near Reno, Nev., say in court documents that their financial circumstances have changed since July 2009, when U.S. District Court Judge David Sam ordered them and other defendants to make the fund contributions. The couple are barred from engaging in adoption services, and Scott Banks now works in construction.

The proposed payment schedule would cut the Banks’ current monthly obligation in half, to $650, for the next five months. It would then increase $50 a month until April 2012. The U.S. Attorney’s Office has agreed to the proposal, which leaves their total obligation unchanged.”

Funds’ Usage

“Jini L. Roby, who agreed to oversee the fund at no charge, said a “significant amount” has been paid so far into the fund, which is supposed to eventually reach $100,000.

“We are using it for mostly communication purposes between adoptive and birth parents and for holding get-togethers for the adopted children,” said Roby, an associate professor of social work at Brigham Young University whose research interests include global adoption issues.

She said birth and adoptive families have exchanged letters, photos, packages, emails and phone calls.”
“It also has paid for Samoan and English language books, dictionaries and even English lessons for birth parents, all aimed at helping the children, birth and adoptive parents better communicate, she said.”

Samoan adoption scheme payments to be cut
[Salt Lake City Tribune 5/31/11 by Brook Adams]

For more information about Scott and Karen Banks, read the PoundPup Legacy Focus on Children Files.

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