Racial differences between Canada and USA

I haven't weighed in on this topic yet due to a lack of computer time lately. After thinking about this since I first read your post Leigh and at least from the people I know who've added to their family through adoption, there seems to be less placement of children in families not of the same race (and not just CC, but AA, Hispanic, even East Indian) honestly don't know why except maybe, with the different groups, they are more apt to take care of situations like this within their community and feel more comfortable knowing their child is with a family from a similar culture. That said, and FWIW, both my children are part-aboriginal (Roo is 1/4 Cree and Bug is 1/8 Cree) and their First Mothers signed a form stating they wanted no band involvement. There was nothing more done as far as I know. Roo's First Mother was registered and he is now registered with his band. Bug's was not. Maybe our situations are quite unique as both First Mothers were not living on reserve land and had been adopted into CC families. From our experience with ACS, they do ask if you are willing to consider aboriginal heritage (in the adoption or foster to adopt area) so I do believe that some adoptions do happen. But from our foster care training, it was made very clear that often, aboriginal children will become a permanent placement in a family but no adoption is possible. But I do know that placements and adoptions of aboriginal children in non-aboriginal homes happens.

oh absolutely!! I have friends who adopted twins that were 1/2 native...they did have to get tribal aproval. **eta - actually, they were supposed to get tribal aproval but I think the judge waived it....now that i think about it** It does happen - I completely agree. I just don't see it the same as how things are in the states. How many times have you heard "if you are open to race your wait may be shorter" That's just not the case here....not in Alberta anyway. Maybe in different provinces - that I'm not sure about.

[quote=Leigh131313]How many times have you heard "if you are open to race your wait may be shorter" That's just not the case here....not in Alberta anyway. Maybe in different provinces - that I'm not sure about.[/quote We were open to all ethnicities. Both our waits were much shorter than the average wait with our agency at the time. I think it was 18 going on 20 months average when we were first approved. Bug came in 13 months, Roo in barely 12 months. In both cases, we would not have been shown their profile if we weren't open to aboriginal heritage. So I can see how, in our cases, being open to other races, shortened the wait for us. I know there were other factors, including the level/variety of health risks we were willing to consider. But you are right Leigh. We were told when we contacted an agency in Calgary (not the one we used) that if we had the $$$ we could have a baby from the US, most likely full AA or biracial, within a few weeks from approval. And there's one gal who lives near the town I used to live who has adopted two children in a very short time from the US. SO yeah... it does seem different. I also believe that infant domestic placements are much lower here that in the US for a variety of reasons. I do believe that the social services available lend themselves well to helping an expecting parent consider parenting as opposed to adoption. And said before, different ethnic groups (other than CC) here seem to be encouraged to live as a community and to take care of situations like this within the community. It's only CC for the most part who don't have that form of community here. That might be why more CC infants are placed. I sure dont' know what that says about the # of AA/biracial infants available for adoption in the US.

I wonder about the stats for older children.... Yes, I think that the majority of Aboriginal birthmothers are encouraged and supported to parent in the beginning, but I think that the possibility exists that more older Aboriginal children are surrendered or taken by social services because the parents are unable to continue to care for them, especially once there are more than two children per parent. The social worker we talked to to get our information package and application form made it seem like there were more Aboriginal older children, and that we should do research and be open to the idea in order to be matched quickly...... I wonder where I would find out those kind of stats? Carolyn

Now this is where we run into provincial differences....all adoptions are through the gov't in Sk.. right? See, here the gov't is pretty much exclusively older child adoptions/special needs. If I wanted to find anything out about that sort of thing, I'd contact children's services. We actually met with them before we decided on newborn infant adoption. There was definitely aboriginal children - however pretty much every race was respresented. The one overwhelming theme I noticed was exposure to drugs/alcohol prenatally.

I know in Ontario CAS is legislated to search for a "racial match for children". Despite my daughter being older and therefore a special needs adoption with a history of behavioural issues and mental illness in the family, we weren't considered because she is biracial. When both potential matches disappeared, they were preparing her profile for the Adoption Resource Exchange and her foster placement started breaking down, we were then considered. She is brown and we are CC. We have been told by our worker that now that we are a transracial family we would be eligible (my words, not hers) to adopt a black child. Before that, we would not. It's my understanding there are more potential adoptive parents, both looking to do an adoption privately as well as through Children's Aid (etc), than there are children's available. I wonder, though, how many children's stay in foster care because there isn't a racial match? Allana

This is true. There are no private agencies left in SK. We checked into moving to Saskatoon during our wait for Roo so researched it. I believe it is this way in the Maritime provinces as well.

We were told this as well by Alberta Children's Services. Since we were open to any race and especially to Aboriginal children (not many people are I guess) we would be placed quickly. The struggle for us was with what we felt we could handle special needs wise on a behavioral basis, esp in an older child. Here in Alberta, the majority of children in foster care are aboriginal. But I don't know if that has to do with there not being available adoptive placements (as in, families willing to consider aboriginal) or if it is the fact that alot of aboriginal children are considered not adoptable because their band won't allow it.

This is very interesting Allana! Although I do agree that transethnic placements add another dimension to a family, you'd think that racial matching would not keep a child from having a family if in fact, the family was a good fit for them otherwise. Guess I'll have to look into this more. Don't know much about Ontario. As for your agency opening your profile up to allowing a black child placed in your home, we had the opposite thing happen to us. Lots of questioning (I guess to make sure we knew) about whether we still wanted to consider a transethnic placement for our second child since DD was CC. We were not a "white" family. Well... it didn't change anything and both our kiddos have very similar ethnic heritage although they are from two birth families ~ Cree and European.

I'm an aboriginal mother to two aboriginal sons (and waiting for one more - woo hoo). In BC we have a waiting children profile section on the net that we can look through and despite being told how many of the children available for adoption in our province the list on the net is really small. One thing I've noticed is that the children are typically considerably older and mainly cross section of caucasion and aboriginal. There are very few of other races. As an aboriginal woman I was first rushed through the early stages of the adoption system as I was looking to adopt aboriginal and there are just far too few aboriginal homes for the kids in care looking for a forever home. I thought the process would be really quick so hubby and I took our time to finish the process as we needed a little time to get ready - being in our 40's and all :D It actually took us 19 months for son 1 to join our family. Son 2 was a private placement from an aboriginal family in my community. One of the delays we had was that despite being an aboriginal home, we were not aboriginal from the right bands. I.E. if the child was from the Okanagan, but my band is not, that suddenly became a problem. Not all bands want to adopt even to an aboriginal household. The SW's had to really fight for son 1 to be adopted. The other problem I see in the system is that it takes far too long for the SW's to get the children into the wards of the court system. By the time most of the children are made wards and ready to adopt they are older and harder to adopt. It`s rare to find infants - they are out there in the foster homes but they are left in limbo for up to two - three and more years waiting for someone to do something. There are so many factors in the way of having more of the children adopted at a younger age. I am waiting for a match with a 0 to 4 year old. Ideally that son would be in the 2+ range.... I know he`s born and waiting for me out there somewhere just as I`m waiting for him.... we just need the system to step in on his behalf and get him to me. my 2 Cdn. cents.

"Wow" says the American girl with the Canadian mom. :eek: I was unaware of this racial match priority in Canada. You see here it is not easy to adopt any baby but it is more likely that the wait period will be less if you are willing to be a transracial family. The fact of the matter is there are more AA children and Hispanic children in FC than white. We actually got dismissed from a potentail match becaus the child (11) wanted a black family. I am not sure about all of the differnt states but in Michigan, we are encouraged to take additional transracial classes to parent outside our culture. This is very enlightening and I will be sure to keep eye on it. I have cousins near the Saint Lawrence River area that are intrested.

This is kind of funny for me to read :) I am in BC and am Caucasion. I have adopted two African-American sons from the states, given birth to two CC sons and have to First Nations Daughters :) At least where I am, most of the infants I know of that are adopted are AA and from the states. The foster parents are almost all fostering First Nations kids. In regards to kids in care - it was MUCH easier for us to adopt from the states than it was to adopt from province at that time (late 90s in rural BC). Where I am located, almost NEVER do CC parents adopt FN kids - not because they are not willing but because the bands will absolutely not allow it to happen. The ONLY circumstances where it is even possible are when both biological parents request it and are willing to state that - and fight for it in court (which is what happened with our girls). I have many friends that are raising FN kids as their parents, but are technically foster parents (but for 10 - 19 years).

Yes, statistically speaking, your wait will be much shorter if you are doing a transracial adoption of an African-American infant from the USA to Canada than if you are waiting to adopt an infant of any race in Canada. This of course varies by province or by selection as sometimes the wait can be short if an expectant mother chooses you quickly. Not sure what province you are in - but as far as I know, there are many foster kids waiting for adoption in most provinces. BUT most of these kids are older, have siblings they will be adopted with, and have a high level of needs that make them not appropriate for every family. Also, many of the children available are First Nations and priority will be given to First Nations adoptive families. In BC for example, it is very difficult for a non-First Nations family to adopt a First Nations child or sibling group except in rare circumstances - in Saskatchewan it is easier.

Are you speaking about infants in foster care only? I ask because the statement that "there are more adoptive parents waiting than there are children" simply isn't true overall. If you are waiting for a newborn or very young child, that may be a true statement but I would agree (I am from Alberta) with Jensboys that there are many, many children waiting for families in foster care, most of them older, and with siblings.

You can PM me if you want, as the private agency we used also worked with ACS to place older children and/or sib groups. We worked with both the private agency and ACS (Alberta Children's Service) simultaneously both our kids were placed from birth through the private agency in the end. But we've had some experience with both, and with ACS most recently when working through some situations with our kids' birth siblings/relatives. I might be able to help you. I wish I knew the context of which you are speaking. Are you in a fairly rural or isolated area? If that is the case, it may be that because of your area, they wouldn't have as many kids available for straight adoption in your area. Be open to some longer distance placements which might add to time and costs (for transition reasons). It is simply not true that there are more adoptive parents than kids who need homes, unless you are unwilling to take on a legal risk situation at all. ACS does concurrent planning which means you might end up fostering children with high potential to be adopted, but they don't call it foster-adopt anymore. But if you are not open to ANY legal risk, it could be very limiting to the situations for which you could potentially be shown to. These kids would have to have a permanent guardianship order, and all other situations (birth family, etc) explored before you would even be brough in as a possible match. Through ACS you might need to consider a legal risk placement in order to be considered more. Now, if you are very limited at the special needs you are able to take as a family, that might be from which she speaks. Most kids in care have special needs if nothing else, because of the situations from which they came into care, or because of their ages, or because they are a part of a sibling group. It is logical that the older children MAY have been exposed to more things that cause struggles and higher needs in their home situations. I know it took us longer to get our homestudy scheduled through ACS because we were limited in some areas of special needs simply because we lived in a very rural area with less access to medical services and supports. ACS prioritizes homestudy work depending on your choices in all of these categories ~ legal risk, special needs, age, transethnic, openness to relationships with birth family ~ the more open you are the sooner the training and homestudy would be considered. If you are willing to start in foster care, you most probably would be amde a priority. As for adopting aboriginal children, both mine are, but they were placed in our homes at birth, by mothers not living or connected directly with a reserve, and hadn't been connected since early in their life. Completely different. Most aboriginal children are not adoptable, but rather, you might be asked to consider a private guardianship situation where you are the every day and decision making, long term parent but the child is not legally adopted. They do this (Jensboys can speak more to this) to maintain the connections to their bands and first family members as much as is possible considering safety and health issues. Hope that helps.