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) Sharing minor adoptee’s history in media -Part 1
Russian adoptee Sophie makes the world her stage [Dallas News.com]
It really, really, really wasn’t necessary to share the health condition of her biological mother in this photo description. It is a creepy and gross invasion of her privacy and has NOTHING to do with her really nice accomplishment. It just adds to the savior mentality angle of adoption. 
(2)Precious.org and Sue Hedberg
The fact that both Precious 
and Sue 
are still in the adoption game is disgusting enough, but to read these descriptions….
!
http://us5.campaign-archive2.com/?u=085dd6d1f47888782c6fd0249&id=8605267819&e=0df101858f
“These precious twins (boy and girl) are living in an orphanage. There date of borth is and unknown and a medical report states they are healthy. They are ready for referral to a paper ready family. NOTE: THEY MUST BE ADOPTED TOGETHER. Contact Sue” Get an editor while you are at it. “There” borth” “Is and unknown”
(3) Foster parent gets paid “under $1000 a month” to blog pretty things about foster care
http://fosterhood.tumblr.com/post/50732239622/blogging-ethics-question-please-chime-in
I am in the wrong blogging business! 
(4) Another Sue Hedberg one-she is Tinkerbell now
https://www.facebook.com/sue.z.hedberg
Well maybe it makes sense as she is living in adoption fantasy world 
(5) Sharing minor adoptee’s history in media-Part II
This fashion industry 
story shares just about all of this minor adoptee’s life details! Plus, it HAD the gross and racist remark: “When the Chinese abandon their female offspring—as they often do” . This was in the original story though it has now been edited (without any note that it was edited)
And the APs are adoption menopausers- the girl is 8 and her Adad “a stout 67-year-old man ” Can you say WAIVER.
The region she is from is known for having children be moved from other provinces, which is a big red flag.
The author received a new orifice from the commenters. 
(6) Petitions Galore to Overturn Russian Ban Overrun the parent groups and media
From the Ohio delegation to PAPs and their postadoption proposal to a new letter that CCAI-types want all of congress to sign, these people cannot get it through their heads that Russia already has decided to not allow any more children to the US. It is not a matter of saying it a new way. And they won’t admit in their moanings about their so-called 230 families that 99 have already been placed to Russian families. I am not sure I can read 
any more of the drama! 
(7) This week’s Ethiopia fundraiser in the media
Yes, it is at least one per week. This one is full of more 
.
Local family raises funds for international adoption [Wayne Independent 5/23/13 by Melissa Leet]
Besides the fulfilling the needs of the parent part of the article, they admit that they have paid HALF of 34K ALREADY prior to referral! PayPal direct to the agency as well! And they are adding to the Ponzi scheme if you click on their Weebly page to give some of their take to the AP-run Sparrow Fund. 
Ay! Matey! Let’s share some of the booty!
“While they don’t know when they will hear back from the agency regarding a match, they are still incurring the fees of an adoption. “We have paid about half of our total fees,” John said. The grand total of fees for adopting internationally is “about $30,000 to $34,000,” he said.
To help raise money to cover some of the cost, they have applied for grants and have started a blog at www.4onemore.weebly.com. There is a PayPal donation button located on the site, which takes any tax-deductible donation and delivers it directly to their adoption agency. “
Luckily I was holding my desperately needed dirty martini in the hand away from the keyboard when I saw these smileys, because I spilled my Precious drink all over the place as I shook with laughter. Sue H as Tinkerbelle HAHAHAHAHAHA. Clap your hands if you believeeeeeee.
The only thing I believe about Sue H is that she is Teflon-coated, because nothing ever sticks. I think she should read Dan Brown’s new book as there is a special circle in hell awaiting members of the Teflon Liars pf Adoption Club.
Do you have any bleu cheese stuffed olives to spare, Crabbina?
Maybe I can get a custom made hair bow to decorate the stem of my glass.
Re: Rev. John and Abby Banks International Adoption
I wonder if anyone in the Adoption Ministry community has noted the incongruity of fundraising to adopt a HEALTHY BABY OR TODDLER? Such a child doesn’t need “rescue”, because there are plenty of domestic APs for such children, not to mention infertile yuppies clamoring to adopt them. So by what justification are they begging for charitable contributions for them to adopt a “premium” child?
So true! Sad that most APs see the light AFTER they’ve adopted perfectly healthy 3 mo old Ethiopian twins:
http://my–fascinating–life.blogspot.com/2010/11/queuing-for-starfish.html?m=1
All that corruption is awful! PAPs should go in with open eyes!! But it’s okay her eyes were opened AFTER she got her kids!!
Don’t forget godly Christian women like Naomi Rice, who wants to adopt only a healthy baby… And is fundraising 100% of adoption costs! Why on earth would a pregnant woman who is unable/unwilling to raise her own kid want that child raised by a family unable to save up that fee??
Ababysentfeomthestars.blogspot.com
Hi there, ‘name’. I’m the blogger you linked in the first part of your comment. Just want to share that the post you reference is not about corruption at all; it’s about waiting times. And it’s not about ‘seeing the light’, either – it’s saying that adopting a healthy infant is not a bad thing to do, but it’s not a good way to ‘help’ anybody.
Please, feel free to critique what I write – but I’d be grateful if you could to stick to what I actually DID write.
Best regards,
Claudia.
Claudia, underlying the wait time problem are agencies that over-recruit and underestimate how many maternity clients will possibly place for adoption. Domestic adoption, it’s the family of origin choosing the PAP, not the agency so there are other factors in play. Until a maternity client gives birth, it’s a promise and an illusion that any child is truly free for adoption.
On average, in domestic adoption, there are 25 PAPs waiting for each healthy newborn. Each maternity client, the odds of them matching with a PAP then deciding to parent after all is 50-50. It’s a gamble in so many ways.
It’s to an agency’s advantage to over-recruit and make PAPs wait since there are fees to be made off renewing expired home studies. Then there is an additional incentive to persuade the PAP to change course and think about international adoption, requiring fees for an IA home study.
Ethically, some limits on how many clients an agency may recruit needs to be limited so that wait times are reduced. The recruitment limits must be tied to staffing levels. The current system of the agency doing a home study and then the PAP doing their own marketing, that’s problematic.
Ethically, helping maternity clients and fathers find a way to parent instead of automatically greeting them as “dear birth mother” when they look for help with a crisis pregnancy is another good move.
Ethically, these agency websites that are encouraging PAPs to borrow on credit cards, hyping the adoption tax credit, encouraging fund raising on blogs was fine and dandy when banks were loose on credit in the early 2000’s but how applicable those pages that have not been updated since the recession hit, not helping PAPs much at all. A Certified Financial Planner would cringe at some of the advice these agencies give about money management on their websites. Adoption is a cash-on-the-barrelhead type of business.
Considering the headlines this weekend on how the IRS audited 70% of returns for APs who claimed the credit and can’t document their expense to the IRS because agencies are reluctant to give a full accounting and an itemized invoice to APs, another issue that needs to be addressed. I can understand the IRS raising an eyebrow over a tax credit form for a cash donation to a foreign orphanage of a few thousand dollars and there is no receipt to show the money was paid at all.
I suggest regulatory agencies and the Counsel of Accreditation address this lack of itemized invoices for paying clients. Other businesses provide them so why do agencies not provide them?
Ethically, making agency records public online so that a prospective client knows if their agency’s placement stats are verified, their staff is qualified, they haven’t been sued, that is another missing component. The technology exists and GA, TX, UT and MI, I can go to a state agency website and read a private agency’s inspection reports. Other states, can’t even get that info.
couldn’t agree more! Great points.
Great points!!
Claudia,
(I can’t get back to your blog right now, so please forgive me if you’ve already said this.)
There’s also the issue that many of the healthy infant “starfish” have families who ARE willing to raise them– but they’ve been coerced into surrendering them by poverty or child traffickers. And it’s not just the healthy babies who are trafficked– the “Christian Adoption Mandate” means that older children have market value, too.
If the would-be rescuers would step out of the queue and stop paying the huge “adoption fees”, then the child traffickers would have to find some other way to make money. And if they’d donate some of this money to UNICEF or the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation instead, they could eliminate the coercion of poverty which leads to children being surrendered “in necessity and sorrow”.
The rest could go to infertility research– and maybe a campaign to get the endocrine disruptors OUT of our food stream and ecosystem! Adoption is a solution to a problem; I’d rather see that problem solved in ways which leave everyone happy.
Not to speak for this blog’s writers but the general idea behind their Face Palms and other entries is to apply some critical though to what they see out on the blog-o-sphere and apply child welfare ethics to what they observe.
Some PAPs out there with stars in their eyes don’t know there is even a code of ethics for child welfare professionals much less statutes, a standard of care for client rights, employee training and social science scholars who ought to be speaking up to protect adopted children, adoptive families and families of origin, foreign or domestic.
Thus this blog. It’s to wipe away the aura of alstruism about adoption from the agency perspective and to educate so children are given the best possible way to be raised.
If the misconduct and failure, the faulty methodology isn’t examined, harm can and does occur.
Warning the first: the agency is not starry eyed about orphans. They may put on that facade for the paying customers but what dazzles the agency owners more is dollar signs.
This website is a rarity out on the world wide web where harsh realities and failures are not ignored.
I salute the bloggers working hard to show adoption as it exists in real life and not just putting on a pretty promotional presentation to recruit clients and open wallets.
What they do is unpleasant but extremely courageous. How they manage to do what they do with the PAPs in denial coming on to squawk every time a pet agency gets face-palmed just shows their dedication to these kids.
And, just a general reminder, because I think it’s easy to forget when your emotions are involved. The ethics and rules of adoption, both domestic and international, exist to protect all three sides of the adoption triad, bioparents, children and PAPs alike.
http://covenantbuilders.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/just-imagine.html
More emotional blackmail in order to fund raise for seriously under prepared PAPs. The vacation metaphor is complete crap too. You don’t plan to go on vacation for a week with only one day’s worth of money, do you?
Furthermore, on vacation you don’t run into unexpected expenses that leave you $2000-$17000 short. I understand that unexpected expenses can occur in IA, but to the tune of several grand? Ridiculous, and a red flag if I ever saw one.
That is very scary!I agree that the metaphor is ridiculous! Where will the funds come from that these special needs children will require when they get to their adoptive homes?Once again, what STUPID, UNETHICAL social workers approved these families to adopt? They do NOT qualify. It is sick that people can *reserve* children in this manner.
These are almost invariably the folks who fundraise 100% of their adoption expenses (including post-placement reports), get the kid home and almost invariably resort to MORE fundraising to cover basic expenses for their new kid like copays and MRIs (for a kid they adopted knowing he’d need them):
theroaddownhome.blogspot.com/2012/04/why-help-our-boys.html
theroaddownhome.blogspot.com/2012/10/1132-pm.html
This family adopted 3 unrelated SN boys last year AND yet qualified for $4K of debt forgiveness from a local hospital since they couldn’t pay for their kids medical needs. They should NEVER have been approved in the first place!!
theroaddownhome.blogspot.com/2013/02/wow.html
Way better/more stringent screening is needed!
Wombat,
And of course, if it weren’t for all the corruption that Adoption Ministry proponents ignore, maybe the price tag wouldn’t be that high. Not to mention that the general practice of “fundraising” expenses allows the agencies involved to boost their fees. There’s no profit to be made on the adoption of SN kids if you charge so much that only the affluent can afford to do so– you’d soon run out of customers able and willing to pay for your “product”.
But with fundraising added to the equation, then “what the market will bear” becomes almost infinite… at least until donor fatigue sets in. PAPs begging for money to adopt healthy kids under age four drains the pool even faster. So do PAPs who COULD swing paying for their own adoptions drawing on goodhearted donors’ largesse under the logic that since they’re doing “charity” they deserve not to have their standard of living dip in the slightest.
Absolutely Terrie.
I sort of have doubts that ethics is even part of foundation training for many caseworkers in adoption. If it is, the lesson gets lost in the paperwork shuffle and in the accounting department.
PAPs who advocate for lowering standards — all those evil foster/adoption agencies who screen and *ZOMG* exclude families that do not meet their requirements (these are presumably the agencies that only let PAPs adopt 1 kid at a time unless they’re siblings, wait a year between adoptions, more stringent criteria for high-needs foster kids etc):
“When we were doing research into adoption before we began down the path that led us to Z** (older daughter adopted from Ethiopia), I found myself getting irritated a lot when I read agency restrictions. While in theory I thought that an agency had a right to decide who they would offer services to, in practice, I didn’t feel like it made sense that they would exclude people who would be good, loving parents when there were so many kids waiting for families. I have watched kids sit on waiting lists for years (four years now, since I’ve been watching those lists) because the agency had a lot of restrictions.
More and more, as we parent Z*** through the hard stuff, the only qualification I want to see placed on families is that they will love their child through everything, that they will do the hard work it will take to help a child who has been hurt. That, to me, is what makes a person or people a good family for a child.”
No. Lower standards, letting all comers who insist love is enough, or love + direction for a supernatural being is enough is what leads to adoption/foster care DISASTERS.
http://www.findingmagnolia.com/2013/05/so-that-there-might-be-family-for-every.html
One day I’ll tell my story about corner cutting and how it harms very well-qualified adoptive couples.
Not yet though.
Carlee,
How do you suppose this PAP expects social workers to tell which PAPs will “… love their child through everything, that they will do the hard work it will take to help a child who has been hurt…”? It’s easy for fired-up PAPs to *say* that they will during the home study interview, but the high rate of abuse and dissolution in adoption shows that sincere promises made before placement aren’t always kept.
What social workers CAN do is look for red flags and assess risk factors– and make their approval decisions accordingly. Adoption, after all, isn’t SUPPOSED to be about giving possibly-worthy PAPs a chance to show what great parents they could be. Rather, it’s supposed to be about finding children the best possible family placement to meet THEIR needs.
Atrin, that’s the goal but in a process that is loaded with inherent conflicts of interest and the almighty dollar and combined with so little regulation, the system in a failure. Factor in this religious fervor to “save orphans” and “Jesus spoke to me” and it’s a disaster in the making.
I don’t disagree that some PAPs may need to be screened out. Kid Kollectors in particular. Others need additional training that no one bothers to provide. Handing a PAP a reading list and wishing them the best in a special needs adoption, idiotic. Yet, it happens.
I’ve looked and looked. Adoption Partners, the biggest online adoption training website isn’t offering a course. It’s not in the curriculum for foster parent training either. There is a niche market of books for special needs adopted kids but how many of those are written to cater to the whacko Attachment Parent/beat the kid with plumbing pipe mindset?
I’ve seen too many legal cases where a good adoptive parent isn’t offered services, muddles along the best they can without services and the next thing you know, the parent is indicated for child neglect, usually because the services the child needs is too far away, unaffordable, denied by the family’s insurance or some caseworker just doesn’t care enough to help. It’s a rock and a hard place. Someone fights like hell to adopt a child and when help is needed, they get kicked in the teeth.
Disruption, where are open records on that? It’s whispered about in some state agency committee and the public only sees the abridged version.
Some of these agencies promise the moon and fly off into the night so there is no one around to pick up the piece and help. Toss in states cutting funding to child welfare and a crappy legislature that thinks the expenditures to assist children is a waste of government money.
Agencies do abuse their power. Snap judgements are made. To protect the agency, not the people the agency serves. They are corporations and they are not held very accountable for their mistakes.
The kids, what voice do they have?
name,
*sigh* And that’s why we need reform, starting with detaching PAPs from the idea that they have any kind of automatic entitlement to a child if they pay the money out. Oh, no PAP admits openly that’s what they think, but when you read on some of these blogs how outraged domestic PAPs get if the birthmother changes her mind after they’ve paid– or fundraised– all that money, you realize that at some level they DO believe this.
I agree we need to get the profit motive completely out of adoption. Some things just shouldn’t be measured by the “bottom line”. That includes the avowedly not-for-profit NGOs which pay their executives cushy salaries. Why should anyone make money off of human tragedy?
We also need total transparency and total disclosure, to prevent abuses of power.
The only sense of PAP entitlement I feel is justified is when PAPS are paying for agency services is simple. The PAPs are assigned to a trained, certified MSWs with a minimum of five years work experience who abide by the rules and a code of ethics. Hiring someone who can pass a basic licensing exam is a grand idea. Having in depth interviews with PAPs. Actually completing safety checklists during home visits. Not a revolving door of caseworkers either. If it’s not documented, then someone messed up.
Some of these agencies are substandard. Some no longer exist. For example, Guatemala closed and some of those agencies ran to bankruptcy court. Or got sued. A couple even did prison time or probation. Other bad agencies just packed their show and took it on the road to Ethiopia or Rwanda.
In some states, anyone can throw up a website with stock photos of “orphans” and start soliciting families for adoption. Even “mommytomany” who was a former kindergarten teacher and never had a social work license at all. Her used car salesman wrote home studies. I think there was a lawyer in PA who did home studies over the phone too but I can’t recall the guy’s name right now.
That’s how abysmal the regulation is. The situation was clear but no one paid attention.
With states broke and over-burdened due to the recession and the sequester, I sigh really loud since it takes funding to implement quality control in child welfare.
At the grad school level, it wasn’t until recently that some Master’s degree programs added a class focusing on adoptions. The textbook was 50% self-help book and the other half was an index of adoption agencies and lobbying groups like NCFA.
http://www.amazon.com/Adoption-United-States-Reference-Professionals/dp/1933478209/ref=la_B001HMSLTW_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1369790843&sr=1-2
I didn’t do an Amazon review. Two stars at best. It’s not textbook at all. It’s promotional.
I bought it and it’s no different than the rest of the books out there written for amateurs and hopeful PAPs. The section on home study preparation and methodology was two whole paragraphs.
I’d have to check the index but if I remember right, the section on specialized training for special needs kids was a joke and no one seemed to think writing about mega kid kollectors was worth the ink.
Oh, the adoption class was offered during summer intersession and only met for three weeks. I read the syllabus too.
I think some states do like one or two day workshops for continuing education credit but the focus is more on foster care conversion adoptions than IA or private domestic.
Kids need better workers than this. It short-changes everyone.
Surprise, surprise — yet another Reece’s Rainbow disruption, Kellsey Garcia:
“We are officially no longer Kellsey’s parents. She has been in respite care with another family for awhile now, giving my mom a much needed break. Despite pouring her heart and soul into Kellsey, my mom realized some time ago that she could not be the one to help Kellsey progress and thrive. It was heartbreaking for her, just as it was for us when we sent Kellsey to her house. We are so thankful to my mom for wanting to try to help Kellsey, and for helping our family by giving us time to begin to heal, and be allowed to make decisions for the next steps in Kellsey’s life with a clear heart and mind. Being able to take a step back and really see what was happening to our family was so important, and I don’t think that would have been possible with Kellsey in our home and all of us in crisis mode. I can never say how much the sacrifice she made by caring for Kellsey means to us…
… There are some of you reading this who can’t – or won’t – understand or accept our choices for our family, and that’s ok. I realize that unless you’ve lived with a child with RAD and watched your whole family fall apart because of it, there’s no way to truly grasp the pain and anguish we have all been through. Another RAD parent wisely explained her life this way: “From the outside looking in, you can never understand it… from the inside looking out, we will never be able to explain it.” Just know that we finally feel that Kellsey is in a place where she can live to her full potential, which is all we have ever wanted for her.
… In the Bible it clearly states that we are to care for the widows and orphans. We followed God’s call to rescue Kellsey from her orphanage, and now we have followed His call to let her go”.
A disruption is heartbreaking — but this family claims never to have heard of RAD or institutional behaviors prior to adoption. Waaay better screening of PAPs may well have prevented this tragedy.
My prayers are with little Kellsey — may she find peace and happiness with her new hopefully forever family.
http://www.myspecialks.com/2013/05/letting-go.html
Sadly, not surprising. At least they are honest that the real goal here was in their minds to “rescue” the child from the orphanage and not be her parent. Their lack of preadoption preparation and stars in their eyes have not saved her from anything but instead caused her more heartbreak and moves.
Carlee,
I’d wondered why Renee Garcia didn’t mention Kellsey in this post!
http://www.myspecialks.com/2013/05/an-open-letter-to-colin-brewer.html
Too bad Renee Garcia is still drinking the Kool-Aid about RAD, and won’t admit that she’d have been better served by a blind referral, which matched their family with a child whose needs they were better able to fill.
I wonder if the disruption has been legally reported to the correct authorities?
So, thanks for not tearing us apart too badly. I am kinda surprised no one asked why I didn’t mention Kellsey on that post… though I’m glad they didn’t because we weren’t quite ready to share yet.
I am kind of curious about something though… You said I’m drinking the RAD kool-aid. Can you elaborate on that?? I actually will freely admit that we would have better been served by a blind referral. There were so many things we should have done differently before and after we brought Kellsey home. I don’t know if any of it would have made a difference, and sadly, hindsight is 20/20. Lots of regrets over the last 3 years… but Kellsey IS in a good place now and is doing well, so that makes me happy, even if it’s not the way we imagined it. Anyway, I’d appreciate any explanation you can give about the kool-aid part, because I really am curious. (And thank you in advance for not blasting me.)
Renee, did this go over your head or what? Kellsey’s confidential info does not belong to you to vent on your blog. It’s the child’s info and violating her confidentiality is a violation of law in many states.
It’s not yours to share with your SN attachment friends on the web. You shared it and it’s harmful even if you won’t admit it.
Yes, that child has rights and just because you want to vent online about your agency or your experiences doesn’t negate the child’s rights. What you have done is not ethical even if you think it’s justified. It’s not.
Adoption is about grief and loss. To build an adoptive family, it’s necessary to terminate parental rights and for the child to lose that connection to her family of origin.
Adoptive parents also experience grief and loss when an adoption disrupts. One of the five stages of grief is DENIAL.
To protect children, it’s essential to not violate their rights and seek a way to vent outrage about an adoption gone wrong in private.
This is the point of formal post-adoptive services. To counsel the SN adoptive parent so the child’s counseling stays off the blogs. To provide a modicum of professional supervision to the family because sometimes those services are needed.
If you aren’t getting counseling from the agency, there are other resources.
This informal network of respite care that is under the radar and not supervised by a licensed social worker is problematic. Self-help measures don’t always work long term. Poor kids!
Renee,
Thank you for answering. I didn’t intend to tear you apart at all. I did say in another comment that your reply to the ignorant British politician was good. I also admired your ‘Stormy Side of the Rainbow’ piece.
By “drinking the RAD Kool-Aid” I mean that Attachment Therapy proponents and their disciples in the Trauma Mama club are popularizing a definition of RAD which does NOT match the APA’s definition. The APA definition has nothing about at all about lacking a conscience, being manipulative, pathological lying, or ANY of the terrible effects which Attachment Therapy marketers claim is part of the disorder.
http://behavenet.com/reactive-attachment-disorder
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/reactive-attachment-disorder/DS00988/DSECTION=symptoms
http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/at.html
It’s certainly common for internationally adopted children to show a lot of behavior problems which can drive APs to their knees, but those are at most co-morbid with RAD: They’re not CAUSED by RAD. Assuming said child even has RAD in the first place; to properly diagnose RAD requires completely eliminating other possibilities such as PTSD or autistic spectrum disorder.
Nor is there ANY research validation for AT proponents chosen therapy of forced holding, “re-parenting”, or punitive discipline having ANY value in curing RAD. Children have died from such methods.
http://childrenintherapy.org/essays/parenting2003.html
http://whatstheharm.net/attachmenttherapy.html
Christie Minich has a wonderful blog with many excellent posts on how to help children adopted from trauma. May I suggest her for your perusal? I myself want to sit at her feet and be her padawan! ;-D
http://minichfamilyblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/my-thoughts-on-attachment.html
http://minichfamilyblog.blogspot.com/2013/01/attachment-is-not-just-up-to-our-kids.html
And that’s only a start! There are bunches of wonderful posts on parenting on her blog. All you have to do is wade in and start exploring.
Astrin,
Thank you, I will check out those links. Kellsey has a range of diagnosis’ which I won’t go into here because I DO realize she deserves privacy (and this is more for the previous commenter than to you) and I feel that we have protected her to a great degree. We have been very careful to not give a lot of detail about what she (or our family) has gone through because I DO hope that one day she will be reading and surfing the ‘net and maybe she will find my blog, who knows? (Though I can’t really say I will be blogging at that time! HA!) Either way, I don’t feel that we’ve said anything too harsh or anything that invades her privacy. YES she is with a new family now and she’s NOT in respite anymore, she is with her new, legal, family. Our rights have been terminated, hence the wording in my post. I wasn’t intending to be cruel or harsh.
Anyway, as far as RAD goes, I do believe that she has true RAD. She was diagnosed by a psychologist after extensive testing and he was sure. However, I will also say because of her different behavioral diagnosis’ I would agree there are a lot of instances where things cross over. There were several times we would ask, “Well is this because of RAD or _____?” And we tried to be well read in all her diagnosis’. Sadly, it is hard to find good therapists who can help kids with so many complex issues and this is the problem we are seeing over and over again from all over the country with other friends and their adopted kids as well.
I would like to think I am not completely naive… three years ago, yes. Absolutely. If someone told me then we’d end up here I would have laughed in their faces because I. Was. Supermom. And I knew Down syndrome! LOL But we had three years of painful eye opening experiences and people telling us that if we just LOVED enough, she would be fine… and sometimes that’s simply not the case. I hate the trauma that she came home with. I hate everything she endured before she came to us that prevented her from being part of our family. I hate that we couldn’t figure out how to “Fix it” (not fix HER but fix our world FOR her). I shudder to think about what we saw when we were in Ukraine and the even worse things that happened that we didn’t see.
Am I drinking RAD kool-aid? Maybe… All I know is that we had a beautiful little girl who couldn’t accept or give love no matter how hard we tried. And it’s sad. Whether that was RAD or PTSD or institutional Autism or whatever… it just sucks. 🙁
But again, thank you for the links, I will check them out tonight and pass them on to other struggling families I’m in contact with. 🙂
I recommend the book “The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog” by Dr. Bruce Perry. His work has shown that children raised in institutionalized settings or who have experienced trauma are delayed neurologically. Consider the viral video from a couple months back, of a little boy who swears he didn’t eat the sprinkles, even when his mom points out that he has sprinkles on his face. “No, I don’t!” the boy insists. We find it cute, because the kid is maybe two at the oldest, and it’s a normal developmental thing at that age. It’s also the same behavior that many self-titled Trauma Mamas called manipulative when it shows up in chronologically older children.
Personally, I think a lot of issues with so-called RAD need to be looked at as fear-based or developmentally delayed behaviors. I suspect that APs, while still frustrated, would feel better able to deal with some of the behaviors if, instead of feeling like their child was trying to manipulate them, instead approached it as an issue of helping their child develop skills they missed out on or conquering fears left by trauma.
The way this family announced this online is utterly cruel.
“We are officially no longer Kellsey’s parents”
Excuse me but until a court of law adjudicates the matter, a blogger and disappointed AP just can’t declare it over and done on her blog. Respite care doesn’t tie up the loose legal ends. Juvenile court files are sealed to protect kids and usually only identify the child as a Jane Doe or by initials for a reason.
This child has a name and her history is on the internet forever. Where’s that child’s needs and rights from this blogger’s perspective? Where is an agency standing behind Kellsey and advocating for her best interests and why is is being discussed in a blog so openly?
Godly, Christian well-intentioned but seriously misguided folks who merrily brag about violating adoptions laws since they feel they need to “save” / “rescue” a particular child:
https://www.facebook.com/WeCanSaveBabyN
They’ve also posted tons of photos and really-ought-to-be-private (and who knows if it’s even correct) medical info about said child on their group).
The facebook page doesn’t specify what country the kid is in, but my guess would be Ukraine or Bulgaria.
“The time to act is now. This page is in defiance of the ” rules ” of adoption with this country. Sharing his pictures is in defiance of those rules. The family has decided that these risks outweigh the risk of doing nothing. That risk is surely Baby N’s death. He has a terrible, terrible disease.
The rule that they aren’t willing to break is the rule that they should not publicly announce their intention to adopt a child from this country”.
I’m quite certain it is NOT illegal to simply announce that you are hoping to adopt a child from Country X — signed adoption treaties are a matter of public record, the nice people at the State Dept thoughtfully post info about where you can and can’t adopt a child from on their public website, etc.
“They are working with people there who are doing everything they can to help, who know them and they can’t push every boundary. At least not yet. This is why there is a degree of secrecy to this page. I know it’s concerned and confused many of you.”
Here’s the second Reece’s Rainbow disruption of the week — little Evelyn Burman:
http://carringtonscourage.blogspot.com/2013/05/no-longer-bound-by-fear.html
Plus an iiiiinteresting explanation of the CPS investigations, the Burmans failed attempt to adopt 2 Bulgarian boys, the baby with special needs they’d taken in but hasn’t bothered to mention in their homestudy (and have since adopted), mistreatment at the hands of RR facilitator Serge in Ukraine and how Mama Shelly herself (and RR momma Susanna Musser) merrily violated Bulgarian law by getting photos/birthdays/medical info on Bulgarian kids that eventually made it onto RR’s website:
” We were also asked to find out as much information as we could about the children so the facilitators of Elena and Toni could get the files of those children and find them families. We did that. We were able to find names and birthdates of many many children and we passed that information on to Shelley Bedford, Susanna Musser, and Toni and Elena”.
Except preidentification of SPECIAL NEEDS children isn’t illegal in Bulgaria…because of how the process works…this is such an old argument, where the issues in Ukraine and (formerly) in Russia now paint any Eastern European process, even when that country’s process has already cleared and identified the children who are legally available for adoption. The families actively hold files through the Central Authority in Bulgaria prior to submitting a dossier…it’s not even the same bucket of paint, let alone the same brush.
The rest is well known and shameful and speaks to the corruption of RR, Andrea, and the whole process in Ukraine.
@name – Really? Folks adopting special needs kids from Bulgaria, a Hague country, are allowed to preselect them?!?
You should pass this vital info along to the State Department, as their official website tells folks otherwise:
http://adoption.state.gov/country_information/country_specific_info.php?country-select=bulgaria
The steps to adopt a Bulgarian kid according to State are:
“1. Choose an Accredited Adoption Service Provider:
2. Apply to be Found Eligible to Adopt:
3. Be Matched with a Child ”
Where, exactly, does “pick a kid before you are found eligible to adopt if said kids has SN” fit in here??
Oh and Mama Shelley is disrupting (again), though her blog isn’t public to link to.
Carlee,
So it seems the negative commentary Shelley Burman was upset about was coming from WITHIN the Adoption Ministry Movement, not from us unwashed heathens!
Perhaps Mama Shelley should ask herself why– if the goal is finding families for children– does it matter so much that SHE “gets” Kelten and Teagan? As she herself claims, there are plenty of institutionalized special needs kids in Eastern Europe who “need parents”.
It would also be good if she reflected on the fact that if you engage in a conspiracy to illegally pass along confidential information to further “God’s Will”, it is perhaps not so surprising if you find yourself the victim of such tactics after falling out with your former conspirators because you disagree about who God wants to adopt a particular kid.
I didn’t see it stated that Evelyn was actually disrupted. Shelley Burman claims they placed her temporary respite care hoping that the caregiver could identify Evelyn’s “triggers”, since the Burmans were too busy with their other responsibilities to observe her closely enough. In fact, supposedly Evelyn’s neurodevelopmental pediatrician said that Evelyn needed to be in an institution for her own safety– something Shelley says they refused to consider.
IOW, the level of supervision and care the Burmans were able to provide for Evelyn was inadequate for her physical safety– yet the Burmans intended to adopt TWO MORE kids, giving them even LESS time and energy to deal with Evelyn’s issues! It boggles the mind how Mama Shelley can reconcile this discrepancy to herself.
That, or she’s lying about Evelyn neither being disrupted nor institutionalized. The only alternative is “medically neglected”, after all.
I know the Burmans personally and they are good people. What happened to them is a travesty brought upon them by the crooked folks at Reece’s Rainbow as well as Shelley Bedford and Amanda Unroe. Amanda Unroe wanted to adopt one of the kids the Burmans were matched with, and Shelley did everything she could to get in the way of the Burmans adopting those children.
So several social workers and a carer falsely call in child abuse reports to CPS, at the behest of Andrea Roberts?
Failing to disclose that you’re being investigated for CHILD ABUSE to the social worker who is doing your Homestudy AND that you’re informally providing respite for a baby AND that you’ve actually adopted said baby is a tiny little innocent mistake and not worthy of being reported to the appropriate authorities? Orchestrated by Andrea Roberts, Amanda Unroe (the social worker who approved her family to adopt 3 more SN kids, when they’ve already got 18 kids at home already should have her license revoked) and Shelly Bedford (who allegedly, quietly, informally and unlicensedly rehomes RR kiddos on the side — including her now-son Emmit)??
Nanny, the point of this blog is to look at the methodology of adoption agencies.
While your personal knowledge of the Burmans may put you in a superior position in some ways. your insider info on problems with RR is helpful, Carlee’s point was to illustrate why the practices of placing special needs kids needs some reforming.
It’s systematic and while your loyalty to your friend is admirable, it’s still hearsay. If she blogs, one would assume she can come and join this conversation which is not hostile. Explain herself. She might get listened to and she can correct the record for herself.
The point is: these kids in foreign countries have a right to keep their medical info, their photos and other personal information private. Until the adoption decree is granted, that info should not be blogged since it disrespect that child.
A blogging pre-adoptive parent needs to protect children from the first day of their home study. It’s the child’s history, not the PAPs.
Discussing kids waiting to be adopted like merchandise, not cool at all. This blog addresses why it’s not cool
Failure usually means something went wrong. If there is a failure, then a standard of care and corrective action so it doesn’t happen again is indicated.