Eye on Adoption Agency Programs-August 2012 UPDATED

This month’s edition has a little bit of everything-from new adoption programs to surrogacy to preventing expansion of program to suspensions.

Adoptions from the Heart (AFTH): They have a surrogacy program called Heartbeats that is being advertised on different blogs and websites. Their own website does not specify where the surrogacy is occurring. See here. Rally saw an ad on another website that DOES say where the surrogates are from. The ad says AFTH has this program: “International Surrogacy in India.”

Children of All Nations (CAN): Apparently there was one last corner in Honduras that did not have a US adoption agency on it. Children of all Nations has now set up a new “Latin American” program there. See this press release. Excerpt: “With the best interest of this nation’s children in mind, CAN is happy to begin recruiting families who will take these children of Honduras to be their own…”

Lutheran Social Services of the South (LSSS): They lost their bid to privatize their foster care operation. Why? 

“Department of Family and Protective Services suspended all new placements of children through the nonprofit’s Laredo, Garland and Richardson offices. Those three branches supervise 71 homes with 216 children, department spokesman Patrick Crimmins said. Children currently in those homes will stay there.

Lutheran President Betsy Guthrie did not immediately return calls for comment late Monday afternoon. The organization has the right to appeal the findings, Crimmins said.

Family and Protective Services — which oversees all foster care operations in Texas — sent Lutheran a letter Wednesday saying it needs to correct serious problems at its offices in those three cities. Staffers, among other things, have routinely failed to properly oversee foster homes, conduct background checks on families and protect youth from abuse and neglect, the letter said.

In the letter, the state identified dozens of problems at the homes supervised by the Laredo, Richardson and Garland offices, including:

■ Levying prohibited punishments, such as pinching, pulling hair, biting or shaking a child.

■ Failing to properly secure weapons and ammunition.

■ Using food as a punishment or reward.

■ Humiliating, ridiculing or yelling at a child.

■ Failing to keep homes safe, clean and in good repair.

The most serious incident in recent months occurred in May, when an improperly supervised 3-year-old boy drowned at one of the agency’s foster homes in Laredo, Crimmins said.

The department has put all three offices on a corrective action plan to fix the problems. And that, according to the state, prevents Lutheran Social Services from qualifying for a contract that would have given it control over foster care services in areas including Corpus Christi, Laredo and the Rio Grande Valley.

The state’s letter also asks Lutheran to voluntarily fix problems at five other offices it operates. It does not state the cities in which those offices are located.”

After violations, state rejects Austin-based nonprofit’s bid to expand foster care

[Statesman.com 8/13/12 by Andrea Ball]

Kyrgyzstan Placing Agencies: Well, the US government has been useless in confirming the scandalous reports coming out of Kyrgyzstan. We are tracking the story in this post. The latest article from 7/26/12 said that Love Basket is the US agency that was cancelled and CWA was suspended for 2 months. Amb. Susan Jacobs had a powwow with the President of Kyrgyzstan this past week.

Update:

Lutheran Social Services of the South tries to defend itself in this new article Foster care agency defends record, despite pulled state contract [Statesman.com 8/22/12 by Andrea Ball]. This may be the first time I have seen a tentative contract offered that was withdrawn upon further evaluation. Usually, local, federal and private accrediting bodies just rubberstamp everything through. (See all Hague suspensions and state suspensions.)