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[url=http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/09/09/20389254-adopted-girl-says-mother-forced-her-to-dig-her-own-grave?lite]Adopted girl says mother forced her to dig her own grave - Investigations[/url]
By Monica Alba, Kate Snow and Mark Schone
NBC News
Editor's Note: Today's stories are the first in a series of online and broadcast reports on adoption by Reuters and NBC News.
Kind regards,
Dickons
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mama101
Its so hatd to believe this is going on. It is really tragic and sad.
It is tragic and sad and not all that hard to believe is going on, sadly. Until America wakes up and realizes that adoption isn't always this beautiful, selfless, fairytale happening, this kind of stuff will keep going on.
Maureen at Light of Days (covered the trial of Carri and Larry Williams (Hana's so called adoptive parents) - has a post on this story and some really good advice that every adoptive parent can do from their computer now to make a difference in the future.
[url=http://lightofdaystories.com/2013/09/09/treating-adopted-children-like-no-worse-than-dogs/]Treating Adopted Children Like–No, Worse Than–Dogs | Light of Day Stories[/url]
Kind regards,
Dickons
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This article points out some things that need to brought to light, however it leaves out some things.
Most children adopted from other countries are not abused and are doing well and are loved and cherished in their new homes.
Many agencies do a terrible job of preparing adoptive parents for the challenges of raising children who have been through early trauma. (loosing first parents, loosing their country, time in orphanages, abuse, neglect, fetal alcohol, etc)
It is extremely difficult to find help for these kids. They do not get medicaid and private insurance may cover very little of thousands it costs for psychiatric care.
However, I will say again that most of these children are doing well and are loved and not abused.
I know many of them.
I also know several children who were adopted from disruption. These children were all adopted through legal channels. Their parents had legitimate homestudies, completed interstate compact requirements, went through the court system and completed post placement reports notifying the countries in which the children were born. These people are not child abusers. They love these children.
Fact: Some adoptive parents turn out to be abusive.
Fact: Most adoptive parents are not abusive.
Fact: Some people who desolve adoptions do so for selfish reasons.
Fact: Many who disrupt adoptions do so because they are trying to keep other children safe or get the child in question much needed help.
Fact: Some people who adopt from disruptions are looking for a way to skirt the law.
Fact: Many who adopt from disruptions are loving parents who want to help children and complete the adoptions through legal channels.
Fact: Some people who adopt from disruptions are abusive.
Fact: Many people who adopt from disruptions are not abusive and are loving parents.
Just to be fair:
Fact: Some biological parents abuse their children.
Fact: Most biological parents love their children and do not abuse them.
We cannot judge an entire group of people by the actions of a few. In any group of people you will find those who are terrible, those who are saints and mostly those who are in between. This includes adoptive parents, bio parents, adoptees, religious people, atheists, black, white or purple. I hope that they also do a story to show the other side. People who persevere with troubled children, people who adopt legally from disruptions. But, sadly stories about good people don't sell like the stories about the bad people do.
Fact: Many people who adopt from
Momraine,
The expose is on those rehomings that don't follow the court process...
Finding new parents on the internet and not rehoming through proper channels is a disaster waiting to happen to the child.
There would be no need to expose the fact that adoptions fail and the adoptive parents turn to their adoption agency who finds a new set of parents to adopt the child legally, through court.
You are correct that there is not enough post adoption support, and I suspect a severe lack of reality based training by some agencies pre adoption.
Nor would there be any need to expose the fact that there are good adoptive parents - something like 1 - 10 people are connected somehow to adoption so people already know that side...
For the victims of the underground rehoming without any ICPC, or Homestudies done, or any court sanctioning of the transfer - it's a good thing to be exposed and should not raise objections. Having guardianship papers that are not filed in, and sanctioned by a court - not good enough because there is no oversight - especially when you find these people over the internet. Good grief.
Kind regards,
Dickons
This is the part that is misunderstood. The parents cannot go back to their agencies to get help of have the child placed in a new family. I use to field calls from parents and the first thing they did was call the agency in search of help. The agencies tell them, "We've never had that complaint before." I do believe there needs to be a change is that area where they could get help.
And while their are children re-homed, or placed for adoption through these internet groups, most of the parents do the adoptions legally. They hire lawyers, they get home studies, they follow the ICPC laws and the adoptions are legally done through the court. There are no good ways to find parents for older children. It's sad that their needs to be.
I would rather see children re-homed then left in families that cannot take care of them or have them stuck in residential facilities when often times, a different family that is educated in trauma and prepared with the knowledge of the behaviors can take them in and give them a chance to be children.
But there will always be people who work around the law, who abuse and prey on children.
I would like to see changes in education for those adopting internationally. I'd like to see good post adoption services in place for people to get help after finalization before the family decides they just cannot parent anymore. There does need to be a better way.
LucyJoy,
Perhaps there didn't used to be but there are now. I have seen agencies advertising children who need a new adoptive home. I doubt they would be in the majority but they exist and would expect it would only be for adoptions they did in the first place.
Even the NCFA states they exist.
In another type of scenario though an uncommon one in our experience ֖ an adoption agency participates in the process, sometimes taking legal guardianship of the child from the time of relinquishment until the adoption is finalized by the re-adopting family. This can provide protection for the child in situations like those described above, where instability of the relinquishing parents might endanger the child prior to the re-adoption finalization. In several of these cases, adoption agency involvement was clearly successful in preventing some potentially damaging actions by the relinquishing parents from affecting the child. However, laws vary significantly from state to state regarding who can be involved in a dissolution and to what extent they can be involved in helping a family dissolve their adoption and find a family willing to re-adopt the child. There are also a number of significant disincentives for adoption agencies to become involved in the dissolution process including financial, reputational, and legal considerations. As a result, many families seeking a dissolution are unable to find agencies or professionals to guide and support them throughout the process. We believe that it is incumbent upon the professionals, lawmakers, and leaders in the adoption community to develop a solution to this problem and better support the children and families experiencing dissolution or re-adoption.
[URL="https://www.adoptioncouncil.org/publications/adoption-advocate-no-62.html"]https://www.adoptioncouncil.org/publications/adoption-advocate-no-62.html[/URL]
With more and more older age adoptions happening the industry has to evolve.
Kind regards,
Dickons
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I agree, things need to change. If there are very many agencies that do this, they are well hidden and hard to find. That's one of the first questions people needing to dissolve ask and I don't ever see anything much offered to them. I'd love to see them come out in the open where families can find them.
I followed the link and read the article. Most of the adoptions it says are done family to family where the relinquishing family found another family to adopt. They each use lawyers. That's how legal rehoming occurs. This agency says they help the child prepare to move. They are NOT involved in helping the parents find the family to take the child.
LucyJoy,
An agency in Washington state did advertise for families for children who had a failed adoption. I saw it within the last year so perhaps the tide is turning, or perhaps it was because of a screw up on their end - who knows but they (adoption agencies) have all the necessary skills and processes down pat to find prospective adoptive parents, so they should put them to good use when it doesn't work...it should be a moral obligation...
D
Except many of those agencies are the ones that didn't prepare the parents in the first place. One of my concerns with them doing re-adoptions would be they'd do the same thing and the poor child would bounce through several homes. I do think, though that there must be a better option then what is available now.
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From the Reuters article:
Another parent advertised a child days after bringing her to America. "We adopted an 8-year-old girl from China Unfortunately, We are now struggling having been home for 5 days." The parent asked that others share the ad "with anyone you think may be interested."
Reuters analyzed 5,029 posts from a five-year period on one Internet message board, a Yahoo group. On average, a child was advertised for re-homing there once a week. Most of the children ranged in age from 6 to 14 and had been adopted from abroad Ŗ from countries such as Russia and China, Ethiopia and Ukraine. The youngest was 10 months old."
I can understand desperate situations in which a child is violent--or has severe special needs that a parent was misled about and is unequipped to handle, but these numbers are staggering. Getting rid of a child after 5 days? Getting rid of a 10-month old? Many of these children aren't "damaged"--they've been taken halfway around the world by strangers and thrust into an alien culture,and probably language in most cases, and then get rejected when they don't morph into somebody's dream child. Some "rehome" the children they don't want and then keep adopting, or trying to adopt (one woman said because being a mother makes her "feel important"), hoping to eventually get the child that they want.
And given all the other scandals, who knows how many of these children actually have living parents or extended families in their home countries that lost the children because of poverty or naivete?
I'm firmly in the camp that believes that profit needs to be completely eliminated from all aspects of the adoption "industry" (shouldn't be an industry), and that the focus needs to shift to finding good homes for children who truly need them, not finding children for people who want to build their ideal family.
The whole mess just breaks my heart.
When I was waiting to be matched I was presented with the situation of a 4 1/2 month old baby placed at birth (domestic infant adoption). The adoption was finalized and then the adoptive parents became aware of some alcohol exposure (not full blown FAS but there were some effects of the alcohol exposure). They went through my local agency to relinquish their rights and choose adoptive parents- just as they would have if they were biological parents choosing adoption for their child. I was originally told I was the "first choice" but ultimately not chosen by these APs.
You better believe I had some judgements about them. I'm still not sure how they could do what they did- throw a baby away because it wasn't "perfect". Who does that??!!
I feel differently about families who find themselves in a situation with a child who is extreme RAD and violent. I can understand why some may feel they can't meet such a traumatized child's needs or feel that they can't allow other children in the home to be put at risk.
This wasn't the case with the potential match I was told about. I don't like to think of myself as judgmental but from the minute I heard about that situation I felt a TON of judgement.
Momraine put it so well. Most people are good and aren't out to hurt children (no matter what group they're in). However, every group has those who would give it a bad name. While any one who would harm a child should be exposed, some people will hear the bad stories (about any group) and generalize them to the entire group. I do wish more positive stories would be highlighted in the news. I'm not just talking about adoption, I'm talking about positive stories in general.