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.
Photo: Derek Montgomery for The New York Times
Today the New York Times published a story by reporter Phyllis Korkki about older adults who are choosing to open their homes to children instead of "retiring."
A Minnesota family, Rebecca and Jim Gawboy, are featured. Rebecca is a retired community organizer and Jim is a retired game warden. The couple are currently actively parenting 12 children.
This article challenges perceptions about the capacity of older parents when it comes to adopting. Instead of perpetuating myths about older adoptive parents, this article frames older parents as experienced, and suited to parenting children because of their wisdom and life experiences. This article also provides a warm photo gallery of the Gawboy family.
As Korkki notes,
"No organization or federal agency keeps statistics on the ages of adoptive parents, so it is hard to estimate their numbers. But executives at several adoption-related organization said they had definitely seen heightened interest among older adults. An informational Web site set up by Adoptive Families magazine has a special discussion forum for older adults with more than 500 members."
In addition to featuring older parent adoptions in a positive light, the article nicely (even if inadvertently) shows an Ojibwe family that has adopted Ojibwe children. American Indian children are disproportionately in out of home care in Minnesota (as in many other states) and in discussions about permanency there is a common misperception that American Indian families do not adopt.
To read the article about the Gawboy family, click here.
This guest blog post was written by Linda Gross.
Photo of Michelle Barclay, Cold Case manager in Georgia
Youth Today recently published an article about a program in Georgia where "cold" foster care cases are being reopened to consider adoption options for children that have been otherwise left alone for multiple years. The project began a few years ago, and is managed by an attorney named Michelle Barclay who works under Georgia's Committee on Justice for Children.
The article serves to provide insight into the long-term experiences of foster care youth and resurfaces myths supporting the passive allowance of youth living and aging-out of foster care. One such myth is that during the child's initial case, all that could be done, was done. While ideally this would be true and could be assumed, given tight timeframes, limited budgets and the occasional bad worker, it could easily be that the child has never truly had the child welfare system work intensively on his or her behalf to find a new family for them to build permanence with. The second myth is that once all options are exhausted in the search for a permanent place for the child, they are exhausted for life. An important example of this are kin who at the time of the child's first need for placements, may have been under life circumstances that didn't allow them to feel they could take on caring for the child. However, several years later a more stable life situation combined with a child closer-aged to self-sufficiency and independence, could result in kin able to open their homes to another person.
The article also brings to light the interesting collaboration between child protection and the hire of private investigators for the purpose of family finding. While several agencies have begun incorporating more formal family finding models, the use of investigators for the purpose of finding additional kin to broaden placement options, this is a collaboration we can only hope grows. In 2006, a 60 Minutes broadcast entitled Lost and Found featured Kevin Campbell, an expert on family finding. The episode demonstrated his field's ability to contribute to the connectedness these youth have, with one two-hour search providing enough for one young woman to have a virtual depiction of her own family tree.
Bringing these lost youth, discounted to becoming foster-care children for life, into new and resurged prospects for permanency is a true demonstration of hope and potential for the future of America's next generations.
To read the article at Youth Today click here.
To view Lesley Stahl discussing her 60-minutes feature, Lost and Found, click here.
This guest post was written by Salma Hussein.
There is growing evidence that supports the role systematic racism and the workers biases contribute in the overrepresentation of families of color serviced in the child welfare. Consequently, resulting in unjust, unnecessary and unequal treatments that go on to influence both access and utilization of supportive services that are meant to assist families.
In the article written by Lorthridge, Croskey, Pecora, Chambers, & Fatemi, in 2012 we learn that disproportionality has been linked to a number of multi-level factors that overlap and have various impacts. These factors include parent and family risk factors, community risk factors, and organizational and systematic factors. For instance, in the parent and family risk factors, it is said that disproportionality exists because of a disproportionate need that exists. Risk factors including un-(under) employment, inadequate housing, substance abuse and other debilitating conditions are more likely to be present in families of color. Furthermore, the disproportionality of children of color in the child welfare system will not change unless these risk factors are reduced.
To improve child welfare services for families of color a multi level approach is suggested. Focusing on addressing parent and family, community and organizational and systematic risk factors that contributes to disproportionality. The idea is that all families and children live in communities that are then impacted by the organization they receive services from. The disproportionality mitigation model that was discussed in this article attempted to address risk factors at multiple levels.
The committee that was assigned to undertake the self -evaluation portion of the study felt it would be much easier to start by looking at the data, and then asking agencies/departments what they thought the causes were. The data that was examined came from the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, and included demographic information obtained from every section of the child welfare procedure. The analysis revealed that African-American families experienced poorer outcomes.
Particular strengths of this article is that it promotes further research to further investigate in determining specific factors that contribute to making some communities overrepresented in both entry and existing the child welfare system. Additionally, the article dispels myths about permanency by promoting a multi-level approach in working with families and communities. Similarly, a limitation of the study was a lack of a system to ensure case records to be readily and easily accessible for further use. Also, the number of African-American families involved in the comparison group study was very small. It is imperative to include more African-American in future research, in hopes of having research participants reflect service recipients. By doing so, we may be able to better understand strategies for improving the profession for all families, particularly communities that are disproportionally represented.
Reference:
Lorthridge, J., Mc Croskey, J., Pecora, P.J., Chambers, R. & Fatemi, M. (2012). Strategies for improving child welfare services for families of color: First findings of a community-based initiative in Los Angeles. Children and Youth Services Review, 34, 281-288.
This guest blog post was written by May Borgen.
The article was written by Amanda L. Baden, Lisa M. Treweeke and Muninder K. Ahluwalia in October 2012 for the Journal of Counseling & Development. The title of the article is Reclaiming Culture: Reculturation of Transracial Adoptees. The authors coin the phrase "reculturation" because they do not believe that the current term of acculturation or enculturation accurately describe the reclamation of birth culture of individuals who have been transracially adopted whether internationally or domestically. The reason given for that is that adoptees' birth culture is less readily accessible to them as they would be for other individuals who function cross-culturally.
Among the strong pints of the article is that it gives a good clear description of the developmental process that a transracially adopted person experiences from birth and onward in developing a cultural identity. The article also describes different outcomes of the reculturation process. Included in the article are differences and similarities between transracial adoptees who have been internationally and domestically adopted. The article also provides three different approaches to reculturation as being education, experience and immersion and implications of reculturation for parenting, practice and future research. The cultural developmental process is described clearly and informatively including tables and charts.
The article does dispel myths about adoption in that it describes the expectation generally held in society that individuals belongs to their birth culture for the rest of their lives. Due to most adoptive parents in the US being White-American, the lived culture of most adoptees will be White American regardless of their birth culture. The article describes the process the transracial adoptee experiences in developing a cultural identity consisting of both their birth culture and their lived culture combined. Many times this process involves identifying with a third culture of adoptees with which they familiarize themselves and come to identify with. When transracial adoptees reclaim their culture, this entails their full immersion into their birth culture. If the adoptees become bicultural they will rather seek reculturation the country in which they already live with persons of their own ethnic background. Those who assimilate into their lived culture will not pursue connection to any greater degree with their birth culture, and those who combine culture will combine all these different ways of relating to their cultural background.
The article mentions the different circles of influence that transracial adoptees participate in as well. Parental influence is mentioned as highly important in the reculturation process of the transracial adoptee but the article does state that "we believe that the transracial adoptive parents alone cannot eliminate the trajectory that adoptees make toward reculturation". The article doe however emphasize the importance of parental understanding, empathy, self-awareness, and racial consciousness as factors likely to affect the reculturation process of the transracial adoptee.
A weakness of the article is that it does not cover the topic of implications of the reculturation process for the practice of adoption, and the education of adoptive families which would have been very helpful.
This post was guest written by Brian Magruder.
The article I found is titled Jason's Story: 'All You Need Is Love' and it was written by actress Rhea Perlman. This article is about a man Perlman describes as a man in his 30s who had grown up in the Los Angeles County foster care system. What Pearlman describes is that this man's story demonstrated the importance of finding permanent homes for the children in the American foster care system that are eligible for adoption.
Jason described that from ages 11 to 17 he was placed in foster home, with three foster brothers. Living in this foster home setting was terrorizing for Jason in different ways than living with his schizophrenic mother. He described a very restrictive lifestyle that allowed him to go to school but no afterschool activities. He stated that he and the other foster children were not allowed to sit on the furniture and ate their meals on the floor. Jason described dinners of hot dog and grits for weeks at a time and not getting well-balanced meals.
Although social workers were reportedly supposed to visit Jason on a monthly basis, he saw workers about twice a year and commented that it was always a different worker. Jason also described difficulties in expressing what was really going on in the foster home as the child welfare worker would always talk to him in front of the provider and he never felt safe talking about the realities of his life in foster home. Jason would've likely continued living unpleasantly in the foster home, but a friend of his from school contacting social services. After his friend called social services someone finally came and talked to Jason alone. After he discussed openly what had been occurring in his foster home placement, he was moved and the provider's license was revoked.
Jason's experiences in the Los Angeles County foster care system, unfortunately, continue to be an experience for children placed in the American foster care system. I think Ms. Perlman makes a great point in the beginning of the article in which she emphasizes the urgency of finding permanent homes for the more than 100,000 children in the foster care system that are eligible for adoption. Pearlman described that things have changed in the Los Angeles County foster care system since Jason was there as a child. Perlman went on to describe, however, that the fundamental experience of growing into adulthood without a permanent connection has not.
Jason described a difficult childhood growing up in the foster care system. This system seemed to lack permanent options for him. As he described some of the struggles which carried with him into adulthood, we can see how important it is to address attachment issues with our foster care youth.
I see the article having strengths in that it identifies current problems and issues facing the American foster care system. The importance of establishing permanent family connections instead of long-term foster care is the main emphasis of the article. I think a limitation of the article is that it doesn't discuss possible solutions and ways of improving the system.
To read the article in full, click here.
This guest blog post was written by Emma Siebold.
The article, Split the Baby: Two Sides of an Adoption Battle, was published in the Minnesota City Pages newspaper on Wednesday, January 16, 2013 and written by Olivia LeVecchia. It discusses the court battle between the Grossners and Dunnings, two families fighting for custody of two young African American girls, currently three and two years old. The two girls are the biological children of Princton Knox, the son of Dorothy Dunning. They were put into foster care with the Grossners after their births because drugs were found in their systems. The article mentions briefly their biological mother, Javille "Angel" Sutton, but does not comment on her current whereabouts and involvement in the case. The older of the two girls has been living with the Grossners since 2009 and the younger was born a year later. It was ruled by the lower court that the girls were to remain in the care of the Grossners. This decision was appealed by the Dunnings but the ruling was upheld; the case is currently being contested in the Minnesota Supreme Court.
A strength of this article is that the information is presented in a way that is easy to understand to the general population. It provides general legislative information pertaining to permanency laws such as the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children (ICPC) and federal and state laws regarding race and permanency decisions. This tone is appropriate because this article is featured in a public newspaper, as opposed to a scholarly journal, which may require more scholarly language. The author seems to take on a sense of neutrality when discussing the viewpoints of the foster parents and paternal grandparents. The article does not seem to side with either party. One limitation of this article, however, is that it does not include very much information about the role of the biological parents in this case. The biological mother is mentioned briefly, the author mentions she has had several other children removed from her custody due to drug addiction. The author discusses the biological father's drug addiction, noting that he is no longer using drugs and has another family. In order to present a well-rounded discussion of all the parties involved in this case, including the foster parents, paternal grandparents and child welfare system, the article should include more of a discussion of the biological parents.
The article seems to take the position that the Child Welfare system fractured. It subtly comments on how the adoption process is very slow and provides a disservice to children and families; foster, adoptive, and biological alike. On several instances the article seems to critique the slowness in finding relative placements for children, citing federal and state mandated timelines that were not followed. The article also comments on the discrepancies in the federal and state laws around race considerations and permanency. The article seems to take the position that it is not as simple an issue to eliminate race completely in permanency decisions; race and culture are inevitably intertwined.
This guest post was written by Bahjo Mahamud.
Rachel Zoll wrote the article Muslim Orphans Caught Between Islamic, Western Law, for the Associated Press. It was published in November of 2010. The article covers adoption from the Islamic perspective and the guidelines and procedures that are associated with adopting Muslim children in the Western world.
It is useful to have a little background history about Islam and why the Western concept of adoption does not align well wit its concepts. There are many Afghan and Iraqi orphans in the United States who cannot find a permanent place in an Islamic household because of the Western procedures of Adoption. For instance, the adoptive family is barred from giving the child the family name due to naming and Inheritance laws in Islam. Allowing the child to keep their original name also helps them maintain their identity and lineage. This law can be bypassed if the child is breastfed by the mother, which produces a familial bond according to Islamic Law.
Another important aspect of adopting Muslim children is the prohibition against intermingling of the sexes inside the their guardians' home. Muslim men and women are prohibited from being alone with those they can potentially marry from the opposite sex. Women must cover their hair from these men. Because of this fact, children of the opposite sex are not biological family members unless the mother breastfed the child in early age.
The article gives the reader a snapshot into the world of Islamic law and adoptions in the Western world. There is an understanding of the barriers of this type of adoption and what steps need to be taken to move beyond it. Although they give some understanding of the topic, the piece does not go into detail about those that don't already have much knowledge of the Islamic Law. The article goes back and forth on whether to motivate the Muslim families to adopt or not to adopt. It leaves the reader confused on which stance they should take in this issue.
The myth still remains the same that Muslim countries are rarely open to adoption. This has occurred because families are in a conflicting point of view on whether they can adopt or not, due to the differing interpretations of some Islamic rulings.
In conclusion, this article is beneficial to my colleagues and other audiences who are currently or in the future will be working with Muslim families. However, it should not be used as a sole resource to the topic. I encourage them to make an extra effort to learn the broader details on the intricacies of Islamic law as it applies to adoption. Overall, this is a decently written, informative article for those who know little or nothing on the topic of Islamic adoption.
To read the article, click here.
This blog post was written by Kelly Pieper.
The Family Reunification Act (HF704/SF422) is a bill currently being debated by Minnesota lawmakers that would give parents who had previously lost custodial rights a chance to be reunited with children. A recent news article written in late February by Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) reporter Sasha Aslanian, seeks to explain what passage of this bill would mean for Minnesota families. According to the article, the Family Reunification Act would allow children over the age of fifteen to be reunited with parents who had their parental rights legally terminated a minimum of 36 months prior. These parents would have to prove that they could adequately provide care for the child.
The article brings up several good points about why the bill might be a positive for children. It states that many older children, particularly African American or American Indian children, are never adopted and never find permanent homes. Allowing these children to return to parents who have addressed previous issues such as drug addiction or criminal history, allows them to maintain family connections and gives them a support system.
Overall, the article presents the factual information well. However, it does not address one important question: how does one pursue reunification. The Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare points out in a recent blog post that such a petition could only be brought by the county attorney. Thus, even if a child or guardian believes that this would be in the child's best interest, the ultimate decision lies in the hands of an individual outside the family. The MPR article does not go into detail about this aspect of the proposed law, and thus may not be representing the complexity or difficulty of the process adequately. The article does a fairly good job of presenting a human perspective by detailing the story of a mother who had previously lost her rights due to drug abuse. However, the article also states that the family described would not be eligible for reunification under the new proposal, and the Family Reunification Act would only affect about 35 children. This may make many readers wonder if such a small affect is worth the process.
The MPR article shows a different side to foster care that many may not see. Through using one family's story, it shows that it is possible for parents to change. And, when parents change and safety can be assured, children deserve to maintain their family. It also shows that for many children, a permanent family through adoption is only a distant hope. This runs counter to the portrait often painted of a child removed from an abusive parent that finds love and redemption within in a new family. The article instead allows readers to see that this picture may not always, or even often, be realistic. Overall, the article seems to be slightly biased and conveys a sense of support for the bill. It concludes by simply stating that families deserve second changes and this legislation would provide for those second chances.
To read the full article, click here.
