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)Joint Council 38th Annual Child Welfare Symposium
“Policing Ourselves: What the Adoption Community Can And Should Do About Corrupt Adoption Service Providers
I tried to get excited about other job offer, but only had a “sense of peace” about continuing in service to children and families. I knew God wanted me to continue this work. Founding an agency was a daunting experience, but God led me through it and helped me find just the right people to help me. After becoming licensed to provide adoption services, I applied for my non-profit status and was awarded with its recognition. 
ABI is also pursuing additional avenues of service to our communities.”””says ““Save the Children welcomes the launch of the Action Plan on Children in Adversity as a means to address the needs of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable children,” said Greg Ramm, Associate Vice-President for child protection and HIV & AIDS at Save the Children US. “We look forward to continued and renewed partnership with other organizations in the U.S. and around the world that focus on children’s needs so that this action plan will make a real difference in their lives.””
while Katherine Strottman , Executive Director of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute, says ““We know that strong families are the building blocks of strong communities and strong communities are the building blocks of strong nations,” said Kathleen Strottman, Executive Director of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute. “The Plan not only recognizes the vital role families play in the development of children but ensures that US funding and programs serve children in and through their families. This is a major step forward and holds promise not only for the futures of children, but the future of nations.””Hmmm…
nothing about adoption at all in their words.
(2)The Invisible Red Thread Documentary
http://www.fcamidwest.com/calendar?eventId=793804&EventViewMode=EventDetails
Why do you use the Red Thread? Don’t you know that the two people connected by the red thread are destined lovers, 
regardless of time, place, or circumstances?
(3) How about sharing your kid’s story with the whole world?
http://www.babble.com/disney-dads/weezer-bassist-on-his-darkest-moments-as-a-dad/
(4) Congo
http://chronicle.augusta.com/news/2014-02-15/us-parents-stuck-congo-adopted-children
““Justin is not going to leave the boys,” Alana Carroll said from the family’s home in Jefferson City, Tenn., where she’s been caring for biological daughter Carson since her birth on Nov. 25. Justin Carroll was not present for Carson’s birth;
he left for Africa almost a week earlier.”
“American diplomats in Kinshasa have met with the waiting families and with Congolese officials to discuss the suspension, but Alana Carroll said the families wished the U.S. Embassy staff would press harder to get the cases moving.
“The ambassador said they didn’t want to ruffle any feathers,” Carroll said.”
“The Harshmans, Wallaces and Carrolls have been working with Africa Adoption Services, a Louisville, Ky., agency founded by Danielle Anderson, a former consular staffer at the U.S. Embassy in Kinshasa.” Well,she should know better!
Failing to see the reason WHY the immigration visa for the Haitian kids the PAPs were trying to adopt were revoked:
https://bothendsburning.org/department-of-state-plays-games-and-more-kids-lose/
Why it’s a specatacularly bad idea to adopt a bunch of kids when you have no emergency fund and no insurance. This family just got home with a new Ukrainian kid and is in a heap of trouble:
“Sad News: yesterday one of our God’s Waiting Children families lost their house. It burned to the ground. The Herricks live in Cincinnati, OH and have 4 special needs children- 3 of which they adopted from Ukraine in 3 speparate adoptions. They just got home with their most recent adopted son a few months ago and now they’ve lost EVERYTHING. Please pray about helping them or helping me raise money to help them. We have set up an acount through God’s Waiting Children to benefit the Herrick family. If you can help them get back on their feet, please send a donation via Paypal or check to God’s Waiting Children. Please note Herrick Family on the donation. If you need more info or have questions, please email laurel@godswaitingchildren.com. Please pray for the Herricks during this difficult time.”
What’s missing from the home study process? A quantifiable measure of financial solvency. It’s not good enough to hand over the last year’s tax return. Proof of insurance, add it to the checklist. Home and auto insurance both.
If a family has to fund raise to afford adoption, that says the fees are too high.
You’re preaching to the choir. To all of your suggestions I’d add 1) make sure insurance covers sedation dentistry, 2) if they are adopting a kid with special needs, the homestudy must detail how the child’s needs will be met* and 3) proof their home can accommodate the kid’s needs, ie is wheelchair accessible if the kid is in a wheelchair and 4) proof they can meet the kid’s transportation needs, ie must have wheelchair van to adopt kid in wheelchair.
* in detail. Like, “Kid has CF and will be seen by Dr X at the Specific CF Clinic that is located Y miles away and pap is happy to drive the kid 4 hrs-round trip twice a month for as long as medically necessary. insurance covers the vest (or whatever accoutrements the child needs)”
wise acre,
Re: “…If a family has to fund raise to afford adoption, that says the fees are too high…”
Fees for international adoption can be set at whatever level the sending country desires. In the case of healthy newborns, that can be whatever the market will bear. But for older kids with disabilities who are being supported at state expense, you’d think the fees would be set low– at no more than is needed to cover processing costs. After all, it’s advantageous to the government to be free of the costs of their care.
But Reece’s Rainbow and the ‘Adoption Gospel’ changed that. Suddenly, there’s a large pool of parents WANTING to adopt such children. This raised prices… excuse me, I mean “processing fees”… to the level which made it hard for people of modest means responding to the Call to afford.
Normally, market forces would keep prices high enough to be profitable but low enough that their customers would still be willing to pay. But people on a Holy Crusade aren’t deterred by high costs; they’re willing to scrimp and sacrifice to do God’s Will.
Except that thanks to the rapid acceptance of crowdfunding adoptions, they didn’t have to. If you view adoption as a charitable act on your part toward the child, that turns begging people for money from a crass act to fundraising for a worthy cause.
So they turned from saving for adoption to panhandling for adoption, and money flowed in copiously, especially if they had an illegally-procured picture of the child they were trying to “bring home”. Suddenly, “what the market will bear” had no real limits… and the market adjusted correspondingly by raising fees and inventing new fees.
If you read older adoption blogs, Eastern European countries used to only require one visit in country before finalizing the adoption. Now second and third visits are required by many countries. It’s not known if this leads to safer placements, but it does multiply the amount of American money injected into local economies– and ironically keeps kids in institutions for longer before joining their new families.
PAPs who just can’t bring themselves to do the right thing – Kathleen and John Lorenz begged for cash from strangers to adopt a specific little girl they illegally pre-selected from an illegal Reece’s Rainbow photo listing — who, oopsie, has been adopted domestically in Ukraine. (So much for Ukrainians not adopting kids with SN).
Despite the fact the Lorenz’s will no longer be using the donations for the purpose they begged for them (adopting a specific girl), they’re “torn” about what to do. Giving the money back to the donors just hasn’t crossed their mind!
“This morning we got a phone call telling us that we have lost our referral. Another family in Bea’s country has started the process to adopt her. They get priority since they are from her same country. So.
We have nothing. We lost her. I don’t know what we are going to do.
We are so sad, devastated, and feeling numb. We were so close, but it didn’t matter.
As for the fundraiser money that everyone generously donated, we will just set it aside in an adoptions savings box/account.
We still want to adopt, we still want to have a family. This is a huge setback, a slap in the face, but it doesn’t mean that we will give up.
One option is to go “blind” and decide what child to adopt once we get there. At the DAP (referral) appointment, they have hundreds of profiles of children that need homes. We could just go to that and request to see profiles of, say, all 2 year old girls, and then just decide from there. It would be a huge leap of faith to do it that way. And the worst case scenario would be that we don’t find a child.
Or we could change to a domestic adoption or change to another country.”
http://adopticafilia.blogspot.com/2014/02/over-before-it-began.html
I placed a comment on that blog, pointing out the virtues of the blind referral process, but when I went back to check for a response, the blog’s gone private.
Kathleen had spend the past month wrangling the social worker to get her homestudy finalized, only to have delay after delay.
It’s so curious how PAPs who really, truly believe a supernatural being directed them to a particular (usually illegally photolisted) child… but when they can no longer adopt that specific kid, they can’t quite bring themselves to see the supernatural being’s “message”, i.e. clearly, that kid wasn’t meant to be THEIR kid. Heck, maybe the deity is clearly telling them they should not be adopting at ALL.
But the PAPs only hear what they want to hear!
It’s horrifying that this guy was approved to adopt THREE Ethiopian kids:
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/as-i-lay-dying-frontman-pleads-guilty-in-murder-for-hire-plot-20140225
I know! Here is his story: https://reformtalk.net/2013/05/08/how-could-you-hall-of-shame-ethiopia-adoptive-parent-tim-lambesis/