Step Forward for Orphans March, CHIFF, and PEAR Statement Against “Stuck” UPDATED

That march originally named The Empty Stroller March that had to be cancelled a long time ago due to dangerous weather conditions is now rescheduled for May 17, 2013 in Washington DC. This march is arranged by the Facepalmtastic Craig Juntunen of the Stuck movie. The Facepalmtastic Andrea Poe gushes over it in her new article March in Washington to help orphans on Friday, May 17[Washington Times 5/10/13 by Andrea Poe]

Her title claims it will help orphans, It will do nothing…absolutely nothing for orphans. It will, however, promote the adoption business.

CHIFF

Her article mentions a legislation that will be introduced by Senator Mary Landrieu who not coincidentally promoted Stuck the week it opened. That legislation has an acronym CHIFF.  It is being promoted on many Evangelical sites including Both Ends Burning. Here is the message:

“May 2, 2013

Dear Adoption Leader,

I want to make you aware of an important piece of legislation I will be announcing this Friday at the Christian Alliance for Orphans Summit in Nashville.  It’s called Children in Families First or CHIFF, and it will ensure that U.S. foreign assistance puts into action the core American belief that all children have the right to grow up in a permanent, loving family.  CHIFF enhances U.S. Government action on behalf of children living without families using the full array of options – family preservation, family reunification, kinship, and domestic and international adoption – while also streamlining and simplifying U.S. international adoption procedures.

We all work under the steadfast belief that every child deserves a permanent family to call his or her own. We have achieved many successes together on behalf of vulnerable children around the world, and I hope I will have your support for this important new initiative. I plan to introduce this legislation this summer and will keep you updated on developments.

If you want to be involved or have any questions, please contact Whitney Reitz at Whitney_Reitz@landrieu.senate.gov  or Libby Whitbeck at Libby_Whitbeck@landrieu.senate.gov on my staff.”

As we pointed out in a recent FacePalm, Whitney Reitz was instrumental in the Humanitarian Parole for Haitian children when she worked for USCIS. Now she works as an important part of Sen. Landrieu’s adoption promotion team.

STUCK

Kudos to PEAR who has published a critical statement about the movie Stuck. See the  May 3, 2013 statement on their blog at Statement on the Documentary “Stuck”

REFORM Puzzle Piece

As we have stated so many times in our FacePalm Friday columns, the TRUTH is being covered up with the Both Ends’ Burning campaign. They do not want to have an honest conversation of the REAL corruption going on.

Update/September 18, 2013

A crisis is a terrible thing to waste. Senator Mary Landrieu is spinning the CHIFF legislation as a safeguard after Reuters published the international adoption disruption series last week. Teh title of the Russian article says that adopted kids will get safer homes. NOPE. This legislation has absolutely NOTHING to do with better vetting of PAPs or training of social workers or PAPs. It is a FFOA lookalike that tacks on a federal tracking mechanism for adoptees that will be impossible to implement. Of all people to quote, they quote Reece’s Rainbow Andrea Roberts-who places 5 unrelated special needs children at once. At least they call her a facilitator.

“Under new legislation scheduled to be introduced in Washington Thursday, children adopted in the US will have greater oversight and far more post-adoption scrutiny designed to quickly identify abuse and neglect and prevent child trafficking, according to terms of the new bill provided to RIA Novosti on Wednesday.

“Around the world, millions of children are growing up without parental care, in institutions or worse,” said a press release from US Sen. Mary Landrieu, co-sponsor of the legislation and chairwoman of the nonprofit Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute which advocates for orphans and foster children around the world.

“American law should reflect the human truth that children need families,” the release said.

The proposed legislation, called The Children in Families First (CHIFF) Act, establishes a new Bureau of Vulnerable Children and Family Security under the US State Department and expands US aid beyond the food and medicine already being provided to children in need around the world, with a new focus on finding families for those without parents.

It also streamlines the international adoption process for American families and develops a process for reviewing international adoptions.

Though details were scant in advance of the bill being filed, CHIFF appears to address some of the issues at the center of an adoption standoff between Washington and Moscow.

More than 60,000 children from Russia have been adopted by Americans since the early 1990’s, according to figures from the State Department.

At least 20 of them are known to have died in the care of their new parents, and Russian officials have said they suspect many more children have been abused.

Moscow has also complained that the US system makes it virtually impossible for them to check on the treatment of children after adoption.

Those concerns in part drove Russian officials to ban all adoptions of Russian children by Americans as of Jan. 1, a move that left hundreds of adoptions already in progress in limbo.

In the months since the ban was imposed, new claims of Russian orphans being abused by their US parents have surfaced.

And a recent investigation by Reuters exposed the little-known practice of “rehoming,” in which some adoptive US parents, overwhelmed and unprepared for the severe emotional and behavioral problems some of the children displayed, quietly handed them over to new guardians they found on the Internet.

Two of the adoptees featured in the report were from Russia.

“Not everyone is cut out to adopt, not even with the strongest of faith or the best of intentions. And not every child is a good match for every family, no matter what some people say,” said Andrea Roberts, founder of Reece’s Rainbow, an organization which facilitates international adoptions for special needs children.

But if guardians or adoptive parents aren’t trained or prepared, “that is a recipe for disaster,” she said in a statement to RIA Novosti.

On Wednesday there was what could be seen as the first glimmer of hope for a solution to the US-Russia adoption impasse.

And it came from an unexpected source: Pavel Astakhov, Russia’s child rights commissioner, a strong supporter of the adoption ban and an outspoken critic of the US adoption system.

Russia, he said during a press conference in Moscow Wednesday, has a system for providing training to adoptive families and is prepared to teach Americans how to create and maintain such a service.

“America has a troubled system. Advertising children and placing them in families through social networks – this is something outside the jurisdiction of any specific state. This is the kind of problem that they are running into and therefore we, too, are running into,” Astakhov said.

“We want to help and we have experience of our own,” he added.

A number of US lawmakers contacted by RIA Novosti had not yet seen the remarks and did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The CHIFF Act must be approved by both houses of Congress and signed into law by US President Barack Obama before it can be implemented.”

Adopted Kids to Get Safer Homes, More Oversight – New US Plan

[RIA Novosti 9/19/13]

CHIFF must be what Megan Twohey was referring to in the September 14 piece U.S. urged to track adopted foreign kids passed off to new homes [The Columbus Dispatch 9/14/13 by Megan Twohey] ‘

Members of Congress and officials in Russia, Brazil, Guatemala and other nations are calling on U.S. authorities to better monitor what becomes of foreign-born children who are adopted by Americans and brought to the United States.

An investigation this week showed that some American parents who regret adopting children from abroad turn to the Internet to find new homes for the boys and girls, often with strangers. The children sometimes have serious behavioral problems, and their adoptive parents say they have nowhere else to turn.

Through informal custody transfers, parents can bypass the involvement of child-welfare officials. When parents fail to alert authorities of a transfer, it can become impossible for the U.S. government to track the child.

No federal or state laws explicitly address re-homing of adopted children in the United States, and state laws vary on who can advertise children or facilitate transfers of custody.

“The Reuters report is shocking,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee. “It exposes the enormous potential for danger, abuse and exploitation involving these children.”

Grassley said in a statement that he would explore “possible options for federal action.”

Democratic Sens. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, like Grassley, previously have called for adoption-related legislation.

Klobuchar said this week that she plans to reintroduce a bill to “enhance post-adoption support services for families having difficulty raising their adoptive children.” The bill would require the U.S. government to “improve its data collection regarding adoptions — especially those that fail — to better develop the support services.””

CHIFF Specifics

Some specifics are on Landrieu’s website here and pasted below (note how they are trying to buy orphans with USAID and still want to direct how child welfare operates in foreign countries, JUST like FFOA):
“Children in Families First Act

The Problem:
A critical gap exists in U.S. foreign policy and programming for children around the world who live without families – on the streets, in orphanages, in refugee camps. Although U.S. foreign policy emphasizes preserving or creating safe, permanent families for children living without this vital protection, the structures and systems supported by the Federal Government fail to meet this important objective. In addition, the current procedures employed by the Federal Government do not effectively support children whose best interests are served through intercountry adoption.

The Solution:
CHIFF seek to refocus the United States Government on the critical work of ensuring that all children can grow up in families and better aligns the right Federal agencies toward achieving this objective. The legislation:

Redesigns responsibility within the Department of State for international children’s issues by discontinuing the Office of Children’s Issues, Adoption Division, (now located in the Bureau of Consular Affairs) and setting up a new, stronger policy and program Bureau for Children in Families First in the part of the Department that oversees human rights issues. The new Bureau would focus on capacity building and support for other governments in developing effective child welfare systems that work to ensure all children grow up in families, using all of the available solutions – family preservation, reunification, kinship, domestic, and international adoption. The State Department remains the Central Authority on intercountry adoptions, in coordination with USCIS and ACF.
Streamlines, simplifies and consolidates responsibility for all processing of international adoption cases (up to final immigrant visa processing) in the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
Tasks the Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families (ACF), with accreditation of adoption service provider agencies in the United States and responsibility for post-adoption issues, including liaison with foreign governments in cases of death, abuse, or neglect of adopted children.
Directs USAID to begin moving forward with implementation of the 2012 National Action Plan on Children in Adversity, A Framework for International Assistance, and provides oversight of resources to the USAID Senior Coordinator for Children in Adversity for doing so.”