Cross-posted from the College of Education and Human Development's News Blog.

Registration is now open for the Permanency and Adoption Competency Certificate (PACC) program through the Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare (CASCW) at the University of Minnesota's School of Social Work.

The PACC is geared towards mental health and child welfare professionals in Minnesota interested in increasing their competency in adoption and permanency practice. The 2013–2014 cohorts will be located at the University of Minnesota in the Twin Cities as well as in Brainerd (actual meeting location to be determined).

Schedule of Classes
The program begins in September. Sessions are held every 3 to 4 weeks through June 2014. Monthly case consultations begin in July 2014 and end in January 2015.

Program Structure
There are 13 in-class sessions, 2 online sessions, and 6 post-training clinical case consultation and supervision sessions.

Tuition and Fees
Registration has been lowered to $25. The Minnesota Department of Human Services Child Safety and Permanency Division has provided funding to reduce overall tuition, from $1,800 to just $400 per participant.

For more information and to register, please visit our PACC website.

For those of you interested in all things permanency and adoption related, the Child Welfare Information Gateway has some terrific materials.

Last week I learned about the Enhancing Permanency For Youth in Out Of Home Care publication. You can download a pdf of this guide at the CWIG website.

This guide discusses:

• The importance of focusing on youth and family connections
• Federal legislation supporting youth permanency
• Strategies for permanency planning with youth
• Barriers to permanency for youth

A couple of weeks ago, the Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare held its annual spring conference and the subject of this year's conference was the intersection of disabilities and child welfare.

One of our speakers was Lupe Ortiz-Tovar, who along with her colleague Clay Fink, presented information on the National Resource Center for Youth Development's Making Healthy Choices: A Guide on Psychotropic Medications for Youth in Foster Care. This is a fantastic, youth-centric publication that I could see being a really helpful tool for workers or foster parents or adoptive parents to do along with a teenager who is currently taking psychotropic medications. I would encourage workers and agencies that work with this population to order your free copy of the guide!

The guide is available in English and Spanish.

We had a terrific series of guest posts written by MSW students in the SW5905 Permanency in Child Welfare courses this spring.

Thank you for thought-provoking blog posts! We hope everyone enjoyed the series.

This guest blog post was written by Amanda Talan.

Article: Is there a (transracial) adoption achievement gap? A national longitudinal analysis of adopted children's educational performance

A recent article published in Children and Youth Services Review by Elizabeth Raleigh and Grace Kao seeks to determine whether there are differences in educational attainment between adopted and non-adopted children. The article, "Is there a (transracial) adoption achievement gap? A national longitudinal analysis of adopted children's educational performance," also attempts to highlight potential educational distinctions between same-race and transracial adoptees. The report provides surprising results-- the study found that transracial adoptees perform better than their non-adopted counterparts (children in biological families) and that "white same race" adoptees perform significantly worse when compared to children in biological families.

Article strengths include the fact the report acknowledges that successful educational outcomes for transracial children do not diminish many of the distinctive challenges faced by this population as they age within a transracial family unit. The report includes research that highlights the challenges typically faced by older transracial adoptees, such as identity confusion.

I also found several limitations within this article. Although the article examines academic outcome "over time," the assessments are limited to kindergarten and the third grade. It would be interesting to examine differences in educational attainment at a time point when transracial adoptees are most likely to experience feelings of isolation or identity confusion. Another limitation within the article is that there were significant differences regarding the number of special needs children within each cohort. Special needs students made up 6% of transracial adoptees, 11% of children in biological families and 24% of white same race adoptees. Special needs greatly impacts educational attainment and it is very likely that this inclusion drove the study results. Another limitation of the article is that children within the biological families category were not separated by race, and there was no distinction between international and non-international adoptions within the "white same race" adoptees category.

This study defies myths that regard transracial adoptions as "not in the best interest" of potential adoptees. The article promotes transracial adoptions by reporting that these youth have better educational outcomes than children in biological families. Since I am aware of the various issues experienced by transracial adoptees as they age, I take this information with a grain of salt. Moreover, this study defies any myth that portrays white foster children as the "baseline" for foster youth comparisons, since this study determined that 24% of white adoptees had special needs.

This guest post was written by Bahjo Mahamud.

Phyllis Korkki wrote the article Filling up an Empty Nest, In the New York Times press. It was published in May 14 of 2013. This articles is written to awaken households and the our society that is never too late to adopt children and especially age should never be a factor on why you can't raise children who need a loving and caring parents.

Gawboy who is 60 along with her husband Jim who is 76 is taking care of children ranging from 8 to 19 year olds. They have always thought more retired people ought to adopt kids instead of playing gold. The article shares with us other retirees who adopted kids for many different reasons. Some parents had empty-nests who apparently didn't have their fill of child-rearing the first time, others are caring for older blood-related relative children who were unable to be cared for and others who just have the desire to give it a go. But Gawboy says, people "should guard against overly inflated expectations" that they expect kids to be grateful or that they should be grateful to have loving parents or the immediate loyalty." Because those are all wrong reasons to be adopting children.

While many retirees all adopt children for different reasons whether it is to fill up that empty nest or to do for the joy of raising children they all receive mutual benefits. Like the Gowboy's family, who live in a farm in Tower Minn., they said they get the help they need and ask all children to do 20 minutes a day of weeding in their one acre-garden as they benefit from that extra hand. They eat their fresh food from their garden, raise farm animals, and hunt and fish which is both necessary survival skills and work habits for the children. Despite the lack encouragements and support from family and friends they still have the need to do more as they live their life in different order than other retirees she said.

This article is so inspirational and motivating for all types of people to consider to adopt despite their age young or old and it think that's one of the strong strength of the this article.

A limitation is the idea that "it is easier said than done," and we all know raising children is not that easy and requires a lot, especially being financially stable. The family did not touch much on that and it would be more helpful to the readers if they talked or shared one experience at least.

I believe this article did a great job in promoting retire couples to consider adoption and have changed my thinking about the myth of older people not having the energy children require to raise children. This has being the tradition for so many years and know I believe that as long as adults are physically and emotionally fit and ready for children than they can do better job than younger adults.

You can read the article here.

This guest blog post was written by Kristin Struss.

Image by Anthony Russo for the New York Times

Stories of how children come into people's lives never cease to amaze me. Peter Mercurio's story of how he and his partner found their son and subsequently how their son became of part of their family is a miracle onto itself. In the article, "We Found Our Son on the Subway", Mercurio tells the story of how his partner, Danny, found a baby at the Subway and how this child and the adoption process changed their lives. Even though Peter and Danny had never discussed adopting a child and their lives were not set up for bringing a child into their home, their hearts were. When the Judge asked if anyone would be willing to adopt the baby, Danny immediately said "yes." When Danny and Peter completed the adoption process they asked the Judge why she asked Danny if he was interested in adopting the baby. The Judge answered that she had a "hunch". That hunch turned out to be right and changed the lives of three people for the better. Ten year later, when Danny and Peter had the opportunity to marry, their son, Kevin, asked if they could get the same Judge that had completed the adoption. Kevin and the Judge embraced when they met and the Judge was able to see the outcome of her "hunch".

The strengths of this article are that Mercurio tells an honest story about how one morning could change three lives for the better. He talks about their experiences as a foster family and how baby Kevin changed their lives. Mercurio also honestly talks about his fears that when the Judge saw Kevin ten years later, she would somehow be disappointed in how he turned out and be disappointed in her decision.

One limitation of this article is that Mercurio's description of their experience with the foster care/adoption system seems over simplified. They found the child, became foster parents for him and then adopted him. It would have been beneficial to explain any challenges or frustrations they may have had throughout the process, especially if there were any frustrations or barriers because they are a same sex couple.

I believe this article did an outstanding job of dispelling the myth that same sex partners are unable to foster or adopt children. Danny and Peter found this child by chance; they became licensed foster care providers for him and then were able to promote permanency and stability for Kevin by adopting him.

Mercurio ends his story by an amazing summary of returning to the adoption Judge and asking her to complete his and Danny's marriage ceremony. "When we finally remembered the purpose of the visit, and Danny and I moved into position to exchange vows, I reflected on the improbable circumstances that delivered all of us to this moment. We weren't supposed to be there, two men, with a son we had never dreamed of by our side, getting married by a woman who changed and enriched our lives more than she would ever know. But there we were, thanks to a fateful discovery and a judicious hunch" (Mercurio 2013).

This guest post was written by Abdifateh Ahmed.

Article: Why Are So Many Celebrities Adopting Black Babies?
Writer: Kristen Howerton
Posted: 06/14/2012 11:10 am
Journal: Huffington Post

Photo: Agence France-Presse -- Getty Images

Summary
The article sums up why celebrities are adopting children and why higher percentages of celebrities are adopting trans-racially and specifically black children. The writer's motive in the article is not only to support and advocate for the celebrities adopting black babies, but also brings the audience attention to the current issues of racial bias in adoption preference which is very prevalent in our existing system. Black children quite often are trapped in the waiting list to find a home. The article mentions statistical evidence mentioned in the article says it all about the reality in the permanency and adoption. She mentions a significant gap among adoptive white parent who are not open to adopt black children and rather chose to adopt from other race (88% to 14%).

Strength
The writer's strength in terms of knowledge in the adoption and permanency subject is depicted in the title and the body of the article. As an audience I am attracted to the title simply because of the curiosity of wanting to answer the question, and improve my awareness of the subject. The statistical evidences and her knowledge of celebrities say it as well. She also have a drive for advocacy and very articulate in her writing. She seems to know what she is writing about.

Limitation
Although, the writer is very knowledgeable and defending her stand on what she believes, I feel the anger in her voice while reading the article. I thought she should have done a little better in her approach.

Reference:
Howerton, Kristen,. Why Are So Many Celebrities Adopting Black Babies?.Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post. Retrieved May 6, 2013, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristen-howerton/celebrity-adoption_b_1579737.html

Last week I came across a news article from the Times-Picayune. The LA senate approved a bill sponsored by Patrick Jefferson (D), HB219, that would prohibit the disqualification of a prospective adoptive parent based solely on past criminal history.

HB219 would require a judge to consider the type of offense and length of time since the offense was committed. The bill is now headed for debate in the Senate.

This guest blog post was written by Salma Hussein.

I recently came across an online article titled "Outrage, sadness as Americans barred from adopting Russian children," on worldnews nbc website. The article was dated March 30th, 2013 and written by Jim Maceda who is based in London.
[Photo by NBC News]

The strength of the article is that it strives to bring various individuals who support international adoption in Russia. Having someone who is a native Russian and who has worked in orphanages for thirty years admit that Americans are more likely to take in children with special needs than native Russians was a strong point. However, just quoting her alone I saw it as being negative because it is solely her own opinion and that alone. It would have been much more powerful if the article had other individuals who thought otherwise. The article did not do a fair job of reporting both sides of the issue, it appeared to push the idea that Russia is abandoning adoption not because they wish to protect children but influenced by geopolitics.

I think one way that the article promotes myths about permanency and adoption is the whole idea of Americans going into other countries to save children. Two families are mentioned in the article the England family and the Preece family who both adopted children with special needs. From my view, the article appears to communicate that Americans are more willing to adopt children with special needs and it inhumane for the Russian government to make it difficult for Americans to continue adopting and rescue these children who are unwanted by native Russians. A child psychologist by the name of Valentina Rakova who is said to have worked in the Bryansk orphanage for 30 years is quoted supporting the notion that Americans are more likely to take in children with special needs than Russians. This is problematic because she is the only person quoted other than government officials. Yes, the government may have other motives for complicating and putting a hold on international adoption, or maybe they want to ensure Russian natives take in their orphaned children. Children are taken outside of institutions where they are labeled as yet another abandoned child, but they also lose their country of birth and culture when they are moved completely to a new country. Why the article only quoted two white families from the Midwest is puzzling, but I hope that reporters can try to be unbiased in their reporting. We cannot continue to go on writing all other countries and their special practices as being insufficient, while not critically examining our own ways using the same lens.

To read the article in full click here.