FacePalm Friday
Welcome to this week’s edition of FacePalm Friday.
This is where your hosts will list their top picks for this week’s FacePalm moment—something they learned or read about this week that caused the FacePalm to happen (you know, the expression of embarrassment, frustration, disbelief, shock, disgust or mixed humor as depicted in our Rally FacePalm smiley).
We invite you to add your FacePalm of the week to our comments. Go ahead and add a link, tell a personal story, or share something that triggered the FacePalm on the subject of child welfare or adoption.
Your Host’s Selections:
(1)The so-called private Korea adoption that we are supposed to have sympathy for the PAPs about
Evanston couple battling 2 countries over adoption
[Chicago Tribune 1/13/13 by Lisa Black and Bonnie Miller Rubin ]
TRACK has the scoop on the legal documents in this case here.
If anyone believes that these PAPs just didn’t know how to go about this the legal way or got “bad advice”, I’ll sell you my pet 
. What 
are they living on?
(2) Adoption agency reaction to this week’s child death case.
On Monday, we reported on the Leah Aguirre death case in temporary guardianship here. Adoption Covenant agency used this as an opportunity to somehow claim that an adoption would have prevented this. Because we all know that adopted children never have been killed or abused, right? 
“Merinda Condra is the Executive Director at Adoption Covenant and she said in her opinion, the fact that Leah’s mother allowed a near stranger to care for her child shows that she is not fit to parent in the first place.
Condra said many people who are unfit to parent aren’t aware of their options and receive pressure from family to keep the kids. She said that’s why many children end up hurt or dead.
In society, Condra said many people look down upon parents who give their children up for adoption. She said we need to begin praising parents who give their children up for adoption when they can’t care for them to avoid more instances like Leah’s recent murder.
“We need to give people permission to say, ‘hey I’m not in a position to be the parent,’ and we need to say ‘that’s ok, here’s who you can as a reasonable good parent to find someone who will give your child what your child needs,'” said Condra. “That child could be in a safe warm home kissed every night, but that won’t happen now.”
Adoption Agency Speaks Out; Says Leah’s Death Could Have Been Prevented
[Everything Lubbock 1/11/13 by Ashley Hinson]
(3) Can’t see the horror of most stories about trafficking
says Kate P on this public forum and if she was a poor, unwed Chinese woman 
she would feel safer giving her child to a trafficker than “abandoning” the child.
Yes, those traffickers are 
all right!
(4)Misleading title of Russia Ban article
Senator Klobuchar’s “secret weapons” 
are a few adoptive parents. And one of the APs adopted from Ethiopia, not Russia. One quote is from an 11 year old adoptee who says her life is perfect and somehow that equates to the complex issues surrounding the ban. Klobuchar better check and see if those weapons are banned in President Obama’s 23 exceutive actions on guns!
Minnesota’s Adoptees Voice Discontent About Russian Adoption Ban
(5)UK Adoption HotSpot Map
http://www.basw.co.uk/news/article/?id=329
” Ms Robb welcomed investment in finding homes for vulnerable young people, but added: “It is however difficult to avoid a further perspective on this latest government adoption launch, that ministers are utterly obsessed with gimmicks aimed at ‘exposing’ an apparent world of local authority failure to find good homes for children – implying that central government is the only area of public life taking seriously the need to offer long term stability to young people.
“So yes, it is welcome to help signpost potential adopters to services that could help them to eventually take a child into their lives, but talk of ‘hotspots’, areas where children are spending the longest time ‘waiting for new homes’ is yet another example of this government’s simplistic approach to an incredibly complex subject.”
Ms Robb said the real challenge lay in supporting overloaded adoption assessment social workers and professionals who provide continuing assistance once a child has been adopted.
“Better resourcing the assessments process, without introducing unacceptable risks into the system is key, while improved post-adoption support would help to prevent the worrying, and little researched, area of adoption breakdown, where a child is handed back to social services and so suffers twice over.”
(6)Adam Pertman is the go-to source
http://www.adoptioninstitute.org/insideinstitute/2013_01.html
Look at me! Look at me! I am so,so knowledgeable and am at “the table” with DOS!
(7) IAG demands US sanctions on DUMA members
(8)Hard-selling a younger-than-2 year-old China special focus child and photolisting Colombian and Chinese children on blogs and photolisting sites.
To heck with Hague, just keep 
away and baby brokering…countries never shut down due to these things, right?
This AP complaining about being asked about her adopted children:
http://www.carryme.ca/2013/01/yes-they-are-mine.html?m=1
This AP, who previously admitted to paying bribes, is now advocating that families stay together. Basically, all that she tells you to not do, she did (and talks about in previous blog posts):
http://kitumaini.blogspot.com/2013/01/a-story-his-mine-and-how-love-was-left.html?m=1
That first one is quite a facepalm. The second one, I personally would not list because , sad as it seems, the only way this corruption is going to stop is for people to own up to what they have done and make it right. I didn’t see if they maintain birthfamily contact since they live in DRC. I would hope that they do.
I’m not actually sure if she keeps up with the birth family, I think she might. Personally, I just think that it seems like if she keeps throwing down that she lived in Congo, then she should’ve known more about what was going on.
I understand where you are coming from. Deciding to facilitate adoptions when you don’t try to understand how things are going on is never in the best interest of the children and unfortunately is typical of the industry.
IN Sep 2011, I did a post on applying international business standards to the Adoption INdustry https://reformtalk.net/2011/09/29/adoption-reform-idea-applying-international-business-standards-to-international-adoption-process/
This would solve so many problems-I am pasting the 5 ideas here:
1)Be required to have a facilitator code of conduct. This would apply to ALL people that the agency deals with overseas. The PAP would have to read that and acknowledge that they read it before signing contract.
(2) Mandatory annual agency-paid-for audit overseas. The agency would be required to physically audit the overseas locations yearly and stick to a standardized report that the Department of State, COA and potential clients and clients would have access to. This would need to be shared with state licensing authorities as well.
(3)This audit would turn into the mandatory Facilitator Responsibility Annual Report that would be mandatory to make publicly available. The PAP would have to read that and acknowledge that they read it before signing contract. Any issues found would have to be resolved and adoptions in progress would need to be on hold until fixed.
(4) New, pilot programs would have to have similar audit checklist and code of conduct prior to opening a program and it would have to be mandatory to publish to the general public and before being allowed to sign on clients.
(5) Penalties for lying on reports should include license pulling and banning of agency
This would be great, actually. I really only know a lot about the Congolese adoption community and its mostly women who’ve read one book (A Thousand Sisters) and now think they’re experts on Congo.
I’m not sure if it’s okay to respond to this (since it’s my post being talked about) but I thought I would. Yes, we have contact with their family. By email and phone. I am trying to rectify my mistakes. Doing the best I can. I could have chosen to be silent. But I thought it would be braver (and harder) and more honest to speak out. I will be criticized, but it is worth it. It’s for my girls, for the children at the orphanage and for others that may read my blog and change their minds about what they think about adoption. Maybe just maybe I can help someone else from making the same mistakes I have.
Thanks for sharing. Like I said, the ones that most know about the corruption issues are those of us adoptive parents that have gone through the process (all authors on this blog are adoptive parents) so I am glad you are speaking out and trying to right things in your area. We are also trying to bring to light and/or right things as well. I hope your story also influences others positively.
Thanks for the comment. I think most of all I was responding to “name”. And thank you for the encouragement. It’s not easy, especially admitting you were wrong and trying to learn from those mistakes (and do it publicly)! Well intentioned obviously doesn’t always equal right. Not only did I learn a ton about the really nasty side to international adoption living in DRC, I also learned about aid and how sometimes in working in international aid work, the best intentions can do more harm than good. (As in adoption…).
Kitumaini is doing a whole lot of good. Take the time to read her posts. She went in naive and turned around and said no. Please read her blog.
Not sure why you are responding to my post with this. I have read the blog and did not list her blog as an example here.
Folks like this self-proclaimed orphan advocate who isn’t letting a little thing like a ban on adoptions from Russia get in the way of her goal to raise $21k for the tax-deductible Reece’s Rainbow grant of a particular Russian orphan. Her blog is, of course, festooned with illegally obtained photos of said Russian kid:
http://lifesbeautifulbutterflies.blogspot.com/2013/01/14-days.html?m=1
According to the Hogelands, Russian law doesn’t ban photolisting if the the child’s full name and location aren’t given out. They cite Resolution # 905 from October 2008 Paragraphs 46 & 47 in support of this.
http://6littlehogelands.blogspot.com/2012/07/photo-listings-and-trolls.html
Since I don’t know Russian, can anyone clarify whether this is the truth or Adoption Agency Apologetics?
IMO, adopting a child because you “fell in love with a photograph” is NOT a good decision. It’s hard to avoid fantasizing about the child in the picture, which can lead to a rude shock when you actually take home the flesh-and-blood child, whose personality may be very different than the the PAP expected. No wonder adoption dissolution– and bogus RAD diagnoses— are so common in the Evangelical Adoption Community.
They are referring to Ukraine not Russia. Here is what #905 is about from US embassy site http://ukraine.usembassy.gov/amcit_adoptions_notice_0120_eng.html
As we said in our photolisting post about Ukraine, the US embassy explicitly states how one is to know about a child and that is not through photolisting or preidentification http://ukraine.usembassy.gov/adoption-procedures.html
Also from that post”If you are doing this in a Hague country, you are violating laws and rules that are in place to help protect children. Otherwise, you are just violating their right to privacy and dignity. There are legal channels for children to be eligible for international adoption. Use them or advocate to change the system and/or assist in charitable ways to help, train or provide to the orphanage or the families from whence the children came–don’t take this backdoor shortcut, and don’t you dare assume that your religious belief system somehow entitles you to a superior world view and allows you to “save” children, no matter what their circumstances and what the ethics are of the country from which you are adopting. ”
But since you asked about Russia photolisting: Besides what I just stated and the fact that a ban is now established and will be going into effect January 1, 2014 and no one should be planning that they are going to have quick, new adoptions in these next 11 months so photolistings ethically should not be happening for this reason alone, things are a bit more complicated . First of all there are TWO Russian photolisting sites-one accessible to public, one not. Best explanation on the TWO different Russia photolisting sites and why people shouldn’t be photolisting from Russia: http://www.russianadoptionhelp.com/index.php?feed=100 Excerpted:”What is the usynovite.ru Photo-Listing?
In 2005, the Russian federal Ministry of Education & Science (MoE) opened a new website as part of a push to promote adoption and foster care within Russia. This website, called Adoption in Russia, contains information about the Russian adoption-related laws, information about the various forms of adoption and foster care in Russia, a photo-listing of Russian children available for adoption and foster care, and a section intended for foreigners wishing to adopt children in Russia through international adoption.
Despite an early announcement that the information would be available in several languages, only very basic information and a list of foreign agencies holding Russian Permits for Adoption Activity have been made available in English. All of the other information on the website is in Russian language. However, much of that information can be valuable to someone considering an international adoption in Russia.
The photo-listing portion of the website is an online database containing brief biographical data for many of the children in Russia who are available for adoption or one of several forms of foster care. These children are either true orphans (no living parents) or social orphans (children whose parents have relinquished their rights or whose parents’ rights were involuntarily terminated by the courts). The photo-listing contains records for children from every one of Russia’s 80+ regions.
All of the children listed on this photo-listing are not available for adoption to non-Russian families, even if their record says that they are available for adoption. Russian law does not permit a child to be adopted to a foreign family until that child has been properly listed on the official Russian Data Bank of Children Left Without Parental Care for a minimum period of time, currently several months. There is no way to know, looking at the records in the usynovite.ru photo-listing, whether any child is or is not available for adoption by non-Russian families.
The usynovite.ru website’s photo-listing database is not the official Russian Federal Data Bank of Children Left Without Parental Care. From its inception, there has been confusion in the international adoption community between the usynovite.ru photo-listing and the national Data Bank. Russian law requires children to be listed on a national Data Bank for a minimum period of time before they are eligible for adoption to non-Russian families. That official Data Bank is run by the federal MoE with data supplied from regional MoE’s and departments of education. There is no Internet access to the official Federal Data Bank of Children Left Without Parental Care”
Wow, among all the adoption blogs I’ve read, not a single Ukrainian adoption was completed as per Ukraine’s official policy!
(Sorry about the Russia/Ukraine confusion; I guess Russia’s adoption ban was on my mind.)
Susan Johnson, the Russia Program Director of RR-affiliated Hand in Hand adoption agency sent an interesting e-mail to her clients last year regarding illegal photolistings, highlights of which include:
“We are all indebted to Reece’s Rainbow for providing an avenue in bringing the needs of these special children to our attention, there are not enough words to express our gratitude. However, RR should not be mentioned in your documents, home study, on the Internet or to anyone while in Russia, because your child’s medical condition and availability is extremely private and can be only legally displayed on the Russian data bank website.
Any information provided by Elena, Alyona or a volunteer about your adoptive child is absolutely unofficial, only after you’ve been registered is it permissible for Elena or Alyona to obtain information on the child’s health status and location. If “The Committee” in St. Petersburg or the “Moscow Department of Education” were to get wind of what they are doing they would not only shut them down but worst case scenario face criminal charges. I don’t mean to scare you, but you need to be aware of the situation and I would be remiss in my duties if I didn’t mention this to you from time to time. Remember that we need to uphold and respect Russia’s customs and laws while undergoing the adoption process and while we are visitors in their country.”
The whole email can be found at:
http://theadoptionspotlight.wordpress.com/2012/06/09/reeces-rainbow-the-trouble-in-saint-petersburg-email-from-hand-in-hand/
PAP Denise Davis – who legally adopted 2 Bulgarian kids in December 2012, but cannot afford the remaining $19K in travel/agency fees to actually bring the kids home – blogs that:
” In plain simple words we were being viewed as beggars. Beggars and like other families that were pursuing and adoption fundraising. We were being tagged as not being able to afford to adopt. ”
Um, YES. She’s a beggar. It’s a perfectly reasonable word that is accurately being used to describe a woman who begs for cash from strangers via her blog and Facebook.
It’s beyond irresponsible to start an adoption that you do not have the means to complete (her family isn’t eligible for a loan, cannot borrow against their house and has no possessions to sell). If strangers do not give her $$ or a supernatural being does not mystically put lots of US$ in her bank account, she literally doesn’t have the means to get the kids home.
She asks “Would I be a better parent should I had the funds in full? ”
YES. You don’t need to be rich to adopt. But you definitely do need to be ABLE TO PAY YOUR ADOPTION costs. Period.
How can folks like this be saved from themselves? Is there no way for USCIS to refuse to issue orphan visas to folks who clearly cannot pay their adoption costs??
http://nachalaadopt2.blogspot.com/2013/01/posting-and-fundraising.html
USCIS could refuse for this reason, but I have not heard of them issuing a NOID (denial of visa) for this purpose. I am surprised that the agency would allow them to get this far in the adoption without getting their money.
I never would have believed a family would a)decide to and b) be approved to adopt 2 children with Cystic Fibrosis – the funds for the trip are the least of their issues!
Apparently this PAP thinks she knows better than, say, the CF Research Foundation that advises against folks with CF living together (or even sharing a classroom) because it significantly increases the odds of getting a lung infection. The DOCTORS officially recommend CF patients:
“yourself is to follow proper hygienic practices and avoid close and prolonged contact
with other individuals with cystic fibrosis.
In an open air environment, there is less concern for person-to-person transmission of pathogens, but travelling with other people with CF in a car, or meeting them socially increases the level of risk.”.
http://www.cysticfibrosis.ca/assets/files/pdf/Infection_Control_and_CFE.pdf
The children are biological siblings. I’m not sure that the CF Research Foundation really recommends that siblings with CF live separately.
The Foundation in Canada wouldn’t be recommending anything in an adoption. The children’s individual needs should be considered here for the placement. Actually sometimes sibling separation does need to happen for the child’s best interest. That argument is moot though in this case as there are so many other issues at this point in time. Reece’s never considers best placement for any child . And yes we will throw in About A Child here to as they are involved.For these particular children, this particular family has several minor children in the household, the AP is 55 years old and the family admits that they don’t even have the funds to bring the children home. They have other children that have significant needs and have been prone to MRSA even. While they seem to recognize that there are a lot of needs (I even saw a post in which they recognize that outside help for CF would be needed), they don’t seem to plan for where the money is coming from. This couple is approaching retirement age and they have grown children and grandchildren with needs as well. All of these items should be adoption-stopping red flags for an ethical social worker conducting a homestudy. This family should not have been cleared to adopt these children and that is why they are mentioned in this column. Adoption is a serious matter and children should not be placed with any random family just willing to attempt to take care of children. This needs to be considered separately from taking care of medical needs of orphans. Of course Reece’s marketing wants to conflate these two concepts.
Obviously since CF is genetic, there are many families raising siblings from birth in the same household and the US has recommendations.
“When People With CF Live Together
People with CF who live together can “share” the same CF germs. To decrease the spread of germs, they should limit contact
with each other’s mucous membranes, sputum or phlegm.
People with CF should not share respiratory equipment,
airway clearance devices, toothbrushes, eating utensils or
drinking cups or anything that has been in contact with mucous
membranes, sputum or phlegm. When coughing, germs can
spread up to three feet (about an arm’s length). Performing
airway clearance at different times and in different rooms
can help decrease the spread of germs.
People with CF who do not live together should also avoid
activities that spread germs, such as hand shaking, hugging or
kissing. They should also try to keep at least three feet (an arm’s
length) between each other.”
So much for the Davis’ keeping the Bulgarian kids with CF “an arms length away from each other” to reduce the risk of infection:
http://www.nachalaadopt2.blogspot.com/2013/01/what-day.html
Or keeping them off their son who regularly battles MRSA infections (who the Davis’ family brought with them on their first trip):
http://www.nachalaadopt2.blogspot.com/2012/11/waiting-once-again.html
It sure looks like the Reece’s Rainbow McDonald family who are alleged to have paid bribes to complete their Russian adoption in record time.
The McDonalds travelled to Russia to meet their referral in December 2012, magically managed to obtain a Russian court date all of 8 (!) days later and got the mandatory 30 day post-court waiting period waived (!!):
lovinglifewithbandt.blogspot.com/2013/01/our-big-fat-adoption-post.html
Name – how about getting your facts straight. The McDonalds didn’t adopt from Russia. If you are going to slander people please make sure you at least have the facts on which country they are supposedly bribing.