Eye on Adoption Agency Programs-January 2013
Go Au Pair Agency Partners with Ukrainian Agency Adoption Services International
“”An Au Pair is proud of their own culture. They will bring a different perspective the American families cannot provide,” said Susan Kibler, director of ASI. “For the children placed in US homes, knowing about their own culture builds confidence instead of making them feel different or ashamed of their skin color or background.”
If an Au Pair has the same nationality as the adopted children, she is able to keep or teach the children their native language, introduce them to traditional food, and educate them about their heritage.”The Au Pair helps the whole family to have broader exposure to their children’s native culture,” said Polina Kravets, Representative for Go Au Pair’s service area in New Jersey. “I frequently witness families bond with their Au Pairs through this amazing program and develop life-long friendships.”
Bringing in an Au Pair is more affordable than using a nanny and will save the family the hassle of needing to search out groups or individuals with their child’s same heritage in their area.”
Au Pair Agency Partners With Ukrainian Adoption Firm Adoption Services International
[EggZack 11/15/12]
Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute rebrands itself to Donaldson Adoption Insitute
“With your support, we will not only continue our cutting-edge programs and projects, we also will be able to increase their scope and their impact.” [Cutting edge, eh?]
Donaldson Adoption Institute Annual Report
Marywood Children and Family Services, a 91-year-old Austin Texas adoption agency closed in December 2012
“The move to close Marywood stems from the growing number of single women choosing to parent their infants, the proliferation of agencies that provide adoption services, an increasing number of resources for such families and a slowly declining birthrate.”
[The first 2 reasons contradict each other.]
Marywood Children and Family Services will close after 91 years in Austin
[Austin Statesman 12/4/12 by Andrea Ball]
An “Ethiopian Delegation” Visited International Adoption Net (IAN) on January 9-10, 2013
“The Ethiopian Delegation consists of Government Ministers and Regional MOWA Directors. This is a scheduled regular inspection of the agency and the Ethiopian Delegation would like to visit with children and families that have adopted from Ethiopia and check on how they are doing here in the U.S.A. IAN will be hosting an open house for families to meet the Ethiopian Delegation and will be contacting families to arrange in home visits.”
Homestudies and Adoption Placement Services (HAPS) receives Hague Accreditation
I thought this was interesting about which groups “endorse” COA-the very groups that get accreditation and have had 2 major adoption lobbyists at their helm in recent years: “COA is endorsed by leading consumer and professional groups and by many regulatory bodies and managed care organizations. COA is sponsored by the Alliance for Children and Families, Association of Jewish Family and Children’s Agencies, Catholic Charities USA, Child Welfare League of America, Children’s Home Society of America, Employee Assistance Society of North America, Foster Family-based Treatment Association, Joint Council on International Children’s Services, Lutheran Services in America, National Council For Adoption, National Foundation for Credit Counseling, National Network for Youth, National Organization of State Associations for Children, Prevent Child Abuse America and Volunteers of America. ”
Gladney Opens Philippines Program
Heart of Adoptions Alliance, Inc. seeks Hague Accreditation
Heart of Adoptions Alliance, Inc website
Beacon House Adoption is sponsoring a March 2013 Conference at Sea with Dawn Davenport, host of industry-sponsored radio show, as keynote speaker.
Beacon House Cruise information
Bethany’s Volunteer Faux-Foster care system expands to West Virginia
“Safe Families for Children is a program that temporarily places children whose families are going through a crisis with host families. The program is available for children ages newborn to 17.
Illona Roman, a social worker with the Martinsburg center, listed examples of family crises as financial or medical problems, sudden loss of employment, incarceration of a parent or sudden loss of housing. While a child’s length of stay depends on the type of crisis occurring, the typical length of time spent with a host family is between two and eight weeks.
“(Client families) do training and we get them licensed to do the Safe Families program. They’re all background-checked, and we do a home safety inspection to ensure the home is safe,” Roman said.
The Safe Families for Children program is run entirely through volunteer efforts, and unlike foster families, host families are not financially compensated for the children they take in.
Host families are granted temporary guardianship of the children to be able to attend to medical and schooling needs.
Like client families, host families are screened before entering the program. Client families are voluntary participants and ultimately decide when they are ready to take their children back.” [Except for that 15% that somehow get adopted into the volunteer host family. See here]
New program offers foster care alternative
[The Journal 1/11/13 by Samanth Cronk]
1. The Au Pair Situation. So if a family was looking for an au pair and, being a multicultural adopting family, chose an au pair from their child’s birth country, the AF loses. But if they chose a lily white, virtually non-ethnic au pair, the AF would also lose. #AFsCantWinOnReformTalk
2. Donaldson Institute changes its name. Wow. In the “who cares” department, I submit this little tidbit.
3. The Marywood adoption agency closes. Okay. Those statements just don’t contradict. They just…don’t. I don’t know how to say that any more plainly. They just don’t. I own a Pap Tart store and have decided to go out of business because more and more people are baking their homemade versions of pop tarts and there are more stores that are selling pop tarts. I mean, I’m sorry to use such a crude, overly-simplified example, but when you’re dealing with such a low level of comprehension on this particular point, I guess it’s necessary.
Scrolling down…okay. Decent. Conflict of interest, I get it. Okay…and whoops! That little editorial about the 15% of children who are adopted from an optional, temporary guardianship situation. *coughcough* FOSTER CARE *coughcough* If you think every child in foster care was placed there by force, you’re wrong. In the child welfare system I have personal knowledge of, upwards of 45% of the children are ultimately not reunited with their family of origin, some by court decision and some NOT. So…we can leave these children in foster care indefinitely, while they wait for Mommy or Daddy or Grandma to be really ready to parent them. Who knows when that’ll happen but then again, who cares? Family preservation, right? Or, we can provide a temporary, voluntary situation, apparently outside of the court system, for respite that might result in a 15% adoption rate, which also means (for those math majors) that a whopping 85% are NOT adopted. But let’s just focus on the 15% who are and infer, by our one little line in bolded red text, that there’s something “there”. And we can’t even argue that these respite families are making money, cause unlike in state programs, there’s no check! So let’s sum up….instead of getting court systems involved, where original parents have to litigate to get children back, we send them (voluntarily) to respite families who get to take care of Troubled Kid’s needs with their limitless financial resources, deal with medical care for said Kid, and then, when we’re all said and done, reunite them with their original families 85% of the time! All while Original Family does…what? So when family preservation is achieved 85% of the time, it’s still not good enough for the writers here.
You seem to be disoriented about what this column is about. It tracks any new program additions or closures or other marketing ploys by adoption industry since no other blog does that. They are not all supposed to be Earth-shattering. The Au pair situation is a new marketing ploy by the adoption industry. I didn’t say it was inherently bad like you imply but we deal with marketing on this blog and this type of crossmarketing can be expected to increase . For #2, just because you don’t care about changes doesn’t mean others do not. It is a very large and politically influential organization.
You don’t seem to understand the Bethany program at all as you didn’t read about how these volunteers have the least vigorous screening of any type of “foster care” program in the country and they continually advertise that these kids are not adopted out because they need families to voluntarily give their children to their Evangelical churchgoing families. I didn’t mention that these people make money. They are volunteers. Why this program is so stupid is that it focuses on *removing* the child from the family instead of helping the child within the family.The direction that this program is going in is the opposite of other child welfare reform efforts. The cases that go into this program almost all could be handled within the family.The focus is dangerous yet the cash-strapped states love it because they don’t have to deal with these cases.Bethany’s conglomerate is slowly taking over parts of the US and other foreign country’s foster care efforts (China and Ethiopia in particular) and that is both dangerous and important to watch. One of many examples I can cite with Bethany’s lack of proper AP screening: Bethany TN involved in both Chinese adoptee deaths.