disclosure from agencies

People still adopt from foster care and they often have the child in their home for months before they finalize so they figure out the kid has problems. Some still adopt, some do chose not to though and I think that's OK. Not everyone can or should adopt special needs kids.

when i was first adopting my first 2 children from foster care, lots was hidden about their issues, and honestly if they had been disclosed prior, i would not have adopted them. partly because i just wasn't prepared then. i don't think i had the experience to do those children justice. but since they waited almost 2 years to disclose those issues, we did go through with it....hoping we would continue to figure out things as we went along. i don't know that THAT was in the best interest of the children....but we have done the best we can, and we have learned alot. now that we are preparing for our next and final adoption, we have learned enough that we are confident in saying we ONLY want to adopt a child with special needs. i think the difference this time is we do feel prepared to parent a child who needs more attention, care, and medical and educational advocacy. i still get bugged at my first agency for keeping secrets...it was a risky game. i should have been given the opportunity to decide what i could handle and what i could not. luckily it worked out....but i know not everyone is so lucky. so the short answer is yes and no...for some people special needs is a deal breaker, for others it is something they seek. i think to each their own...there are people who have the resources to handle certain needs, and those that do not. i just wish that agencies would allow parents to choose for themselves what they can handle and what they can not. at the same time, anytime one chooses to parent, they ought to be somewhat prepared for the unknown.

Thanks for sharing your experiences and insights. Why do you think the placement agency withheld the information and for so long (2 years)? Out of curiousity, I wonder what happens if known information was kept from the agency itself? Eg. perhaps the b-parents didn't divulge certain info, or the b-parents' hospital, or the placement agency in the source country withheld info. In other the words, how accountable are all the parties who are involved in adoption relinquishment/placement responsible for disclosing information? If I'm a social worker in a USA-based agency, and the agency in the source country didn't disclose certain info to me or my USA agency, to what extent am I held responsible? What happens to agencies (either overseas or in the USA) that are found to have kept secrets? Where does the 'buck stop'? I do know in the international student exchange industry whereby homestay families are provided for foreign students that there all kinds of checks and balances within the 'supply chain'. There was a case whereby a homestay family ended billeting an international student who'd been later found to have a history of eating disorders. The case ended up going all the way back to the education placement agent in the source country and a whole inter-country investigation took place. I'm not sure of the outcome, but at least there were processes in place to guard against and then to deal with misinformation and their consequences. I'm just not sure how solid checks and balances and processes are in the international adoption scene. According to the news article I'd posted, it sounds rather dicey in some cases. And I do know that in general contract law (not just related to adoption), there is the general rule of 'buyer beware' - in other words, the onus is NOT on the seller to disclose information. The responsibility is upon the 'buyer' to find out the glitches. (I know that the analogy is crass, but I wonder to what extent contracts/regulations about adoption placement rely upon international law in general, especially where money is involved). To what extent can adoptive families sue the agencies on the basis of 'false advertising' and/or malpractice? IMHO, business and commercial legal issues aside, it's in the 'best interests of the child' for their full medical/family histories to be disclosed - that way, the adoptive family is fully informed about what special needs they may need to consider to best support the child.

well....my theory is because the kids had SOOO many disrupted placements due to their behavior they really wanted to stop moving them around and at the time could not even get them INto a foster family....when i met them they were living in a group home for kids they could not place, and so i think they decided to lie and cross their fingers and hope for a sucker. and they found one. me. when the kids started exhibiting very odd behavior....mind you i had never heard of RAD and did not know dd had PTSD i would call the worker and she would tell me (lie #1) she had never heard anything like it about these kids before. i asked multiple times if i could PLEASE get a psych eval on dd bc i needed to know what was going on and (lie #2) they told me she had never had one and they didn't think it was necessary. she just needed love and stability. when nearly 2 years had passed and we were finalizing...weird behaviors and all..... the worker called us and said we needed to have a psych eval so that they could do full disclosure for us before adoption. when we got to the psych, she knew our kids...she had tested them DAYS before they moved in with us. the psych gave us a copy of the initial report...the initial visit had also been set up by THEIR WORKER. (there goes lie #2) she knew they had one...and when we saw the original we knew why they did not tell us when they moved in....the list of diagnosis was SCARY...and the behaviors listed on the eval as reported by former caregivers was EXACTLY the behaviors i was reporting to the worker. (there goes lie #1). in addition to that, during disclosure, the SAME worker handed me not only the original psych report again.....but multiple reports from former caregivers, AGAIN reporting all the weird behaviors i reported. (there goes lie #1 again.) all that info right there in their file, reported by caregivers time and time again with every disruption...some placements that lasted only days....some by family members. no one could handle them. i think they honestly thought that these kids had no chance of ever finding a family and someone believed it would be in the best interest to lie. again....it worked out. and honestly, if i had known up front i probably would have never let them step foot in my house....and i would have missed out on some great kids. but on the other hand, it has been a difficult road, and i still believe i should have been able to make the decision myself as to whether or not the first children i parented would have this many issues. i do think it has made me a better person, and a better parent, to the point that i want to do this again ON PURPOSE.....but i still would never advocate for someone to do what was done to me. they knew.....and they knew i did not. and that was not fair to me or my children. my dd did not receive PROPER care or counseling for 2 years because i did not know what was REALLY wrong. [url=http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/living/2010/04/28/am.cho.russian.adoption.cnn?hpt=Sbin]Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com[/url] i just today saw this video where a family is suing the agency claiming they lied saying a doctor visited their child and said the child did not have FAS when in fact that visit never happend by the person they claimed visited. who knows what will happen....but i would think that if a family could prove that they were lied to....the agency should be held responsible. again...i think parents should be ready for the unknown. i agree with dr.aronson on this video that Russia is well known for kids having FAS and so parents should be prepared for that....but if an agency is saying dr. so and so visited your child in Russia and your son does not have FAS....then I can understand why a parent would go into it thinking their child was healthy and be upset about finding themselves parenting a special needs child.

Wow!!! I didn't know that the lies were so full-on!!!!! To me, it sounds like a serious case of malpractice. And the saddest thing is that neither the adoptive family or the kid(s) get the help they need since the information is deliberately withheld from them. I'm so sorry that you and your kids had to go through this and I applaud you on your strength and courage in hanging in there. BTW, what is 'RAD'?

the sad thing is we have many friends who have adopted from foster care who were also lied to. :( and you are right....it hurts everyone. RAD is reactive attachment disorder....bc my dd had lots of trauma early on....her mother died in her presence, he father nearly killed her more than once, her family rejected her and turned her over to social services, and from the age of 3 to 8 she had no consistent caregivers and spent most of her time living in group homes, then she is unable to or still struggling to form bonds with people. she can make quick bonds like make a best friend in a day that she will keep for a month, but can not yet make a long lasting bond- like to us. she does not believe or trust adults in her life unless they are strangers, and she has inappropriate contact and relationships with people she just meets. she wants to hurt people (including us) who try to get close to her to protect herself from being hurt again, and yet at the same time with some of the friends she does make she tends to choose people who hurt her because she feels "safe" being a victim. it is a vicious cycle of hurting and being hurt. she has been with us over 7 years now....and it is still sad to watch. :( we have had to learn to be a different kind of parent to her....and if we had known from the day she moved in, instead of nearly 2 years later, that this is where her odd behaviors came from, we may have been more successful at helping her heal since she would have been younger. time is of the essence with RAD. the sooner someone can help a child with RAD learn to trust and accept love, i believe the more likely they are to heal and learn to bond. i think many of the kids we hear about where parents are giving up or seeking help are kids who have the same problem with bonding (RAD). many of them are worse than my daughter...to the point that they don't want to bond with someone SO strongly that they want to hurt or kill them, stab their parents, burn down their house with them inside. i had a kindergarten student once who slept with a knife under his pillow one night, and then got up with the intention of killing his adoptive mom. he was FIVE! these kids can be violent and hurtful. someone once said to me, "how can she hurt you, you are the parent and she is 8!" talking about my dd.....but kids with RAD know how to be hurtful and can have no problem hurting someone because they have been hurt so badly. at that point...they are not "just kids." they are kids capable of some pretty horrible stuff. my dd has never tried to kill us, thankfully, but in the beginning she was definitely abusing anything smaller and more vulnerable than she was in our house, and she was more into mentally abusing everyone else. setting people up to "get in trouble." making false statements in public to get what she wanted, lying to teachers or cashiers at the store to "hurt us." it was very hard in the beginning. as a parent....it was really hard for me to love and help and raise a child who so badly hated me and let me know that every day of my life. it takes a toll on even the best parent. while rationally you know you are the parent, you chose this, you have to be the bigger person, you can't expect anything in return, at the same time....it is really difficult to have a one sided loving relationship with someone who wants you to be anywhere but there and will do anything to push you away.

My goodness.... I am practically speechless. Again, I commend you for being such a loving parent despite all the huge challenges! What are the chances of someone with such severe RAD 'healing' to the point where they're not such a full-on threat to themselves and those around them?

i don't know what the "chances" are. i do know of a few children that are pretty healed...but it has taken YEARS of intensive help....i think my dd will never be a threat to herself again...i don't think she would physically attempt to hurt herself again....i don't think she will ever physically attempt to hurt anyone else again..and so in that way i think she has healed some and i count her a success story in that way. but i don't know that she will ever be or feel "normal" or ever make any appropriate attachments....and i know that many of these kids will not heal and will not be successful as adults. our therapist told us that kids with untreated RAD go on to be adults with borderline personality disorder.