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dmariehill
Come on. There's a difference in a state photolisting and an unregulated yahoo chat group. You know that and we know that.
Amen!! I completely understand that some people DO have to disrupt and YES I DO think parents should be charged with Human Trafficking if they put their child up for grabs on yahoo chat groups. In this article alone 260 children were given away like a used toy. The reasons are their own but still given away carelessly. Awful just awful! I will pray for these kiddos!
Finding a kiddo on state photo listings is not wrong or unmoral. Your still following proper channels and adopting legally like most people. I'm confused why you are so offended by my stating that people who list their kids like an old sofa on craigslist; should be charged for their crime! Hmmmm......
There are legal ways to find adoptive homes for the child if you absolutely must disrupt and there ARE instances that require just that. DFS is a good starting point. They can get you help as a family and just putting the word out there that you're looking for someone to adopt may turn up someone in your own family to take the child. Get an attorney, do a home study, do all the requirements make it LEGAL! Go to adoption agencies if you must.
JMHO :coffee:
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The problem is there is no good way to find a new family and that's how these groups got started. Yes, that needs to be fixed. If the agencies are failing to prepare the AP's, even when they find a new family for a child with issues, they again, don't prepare them and the child ends up bouncing.
People sometimes use these groups to find parents with experience. If the procedure is then followed up correctly(parent checked out, lawyers used, social workers etc) it makes more sense then having an clueless agency find a clueless family.
Transitions don't work well with kids with attachment disorder. First, they are NOT attached to the family they're leaving. Second, the back and forth scares them and they'd rather just move because then they aren't fearing the unknown. A logical thinking person would think differently, but a child with attachment disorder doesn't think logically. (Had a child once tell me that he liked moving because there were always new toys and at first, the rules weren't enforced that much and when they were, it was time to make sure he moved again.)
I'm not justifying abuse or dropping a child off in a parking lot. And changes do need to be made. I think what gets me about articles like this is that I know that MOST of the parents, even the ones in the yahoo groups are searching for someone who can handle a child they cannot handle. The are searching for parents who have experience helping children with issues. They know the agencies they used did NOT prepare them.
There are too many loopholes. There isn't a good system. I do know people that are working on getting better training for international agencies. I hope that's a step toward help.
And part of the outrage is the articles are very one sided. (at least the two I read) And children with RAD do lie, they do make false allegations against parents and they do ruin the lives of the adults they live with if people choose to believe their lies. But that also makes this group of kids easier targets for abuse.
I have a child with some brain issues and severe PTSD as well. And despite years of treatment, he struggles. When he talks of his abuse, much of what he says did happen to him, but he mixes up WHO abused him. (And often the injuries occurred before he even met the person he accuses). Trauma is an ugly thing.
All of this makes me crazy-all these children, all these people and no really good answers.
lucyjoy
And part of the outrage is the articles are very one sided. (at least the two I read) And children with RAD do lie, they do make false allegations against parents and they do ruin the lives of the adults they live with if people choose to believe their lies. But that also makes this group of kids easier targets for abuse.
And sometimes kids aren't RAD - but it is just an excuse because some parents are willing to label a child home for a few weeks, or months, exist too - despite it being perfectly normal for a child who lived in who knows what awful circumstances transferred to a country with a different language etc to have issues transitioning.
And sometimes there are really monster adoptive parents who don't reach out for help whatsoever, and the adoptee dies a horrible, lonely, degrading death and then the adoptive mother blames the child for deliberately killing herself...
All types of adoptive parents exist.
The conversation is about those who rehome without oversight that provides at least a modicum of security. If you started a thread on would you allow your daughter to date someone she met on the internet I'm pretty sure everyone would be screaming NO...and it is really is the same thing.
Kind regards,
Dickons
There are crappy parents, no doubt.
But the orphanages in other countries-many are horrible places where the children get little care. And the first three years of a child's life, like it or not, do profoundly effect a child's brain. This is why education for post institutionalized children is so incredibly important and it's horribly lax.
My youngest son's firth adoptive mom brought him home from Romania at 3.5 and expected him to be fine in a daycare all day and a babysitters at night while she taught class. He had no language at all. That is a crazy expectations. She realized then she was not equipped to parent. I don't understand how this happens. And she did have him diagnosed with a bunch of stuff and he was given a crazy amount of medication. She called the agency and they did agree to respite. Respite meant sending him to different homes every week for 5 weeks-except the social worker moving him left his medication next to him during transport and he ate it-he's lucky to be alive.
So she pursued finding a family on her own. (Her lawyer knew my other son's therapist).
Granted, this child should NEVER have been given to this mom. NEVER. But I shudder to think of what my son's life would have been like if she'd been forced to continue being his mother. I shudder to think of what his life would have been had he aged out of a Romanian orphanage.
No abuse is ever okay and there are parents who lie as well.
When a parent has a child in their home for 5 days and is ready to quit my first thought is someone get that poor kid away from that crazy person. Second thought is what the hell is wrong with that agency that placed the child? Not that the child did something wrong. I think many of these groups were originally started because of things like this but as with many things, turned into something not so good.
I keep trying to figure out what the best answer is, what the best education is, what the best process for weeding out parents who shouldn't adopt.
We have a really good foster/adoption agency in my state. (They get GAL's and judges to show up for training) I think I might pay them a visit and chat about what to do with disrupting international adoptions. Might be a place to start here anyway.
What resources are out there to help parents who feel they can no longer parent their child?
For whatever reason, financial, mental issues of parent or child, expensive and time consuming medical issues that could come up with anyone, severe issues not disclosed prior to adoption, raising children wasn't what I expected, can't handle it, not up for this situation, violent behavior, whatever.
What if I decided today (rightly or wrongly) that I could not possibly parent my teen child any longer, he must go somewhere else for the sake of my family, or just for my sake, someone else must help or do it for me completely? I give up, I quit.
What do I do?
What is the proper avenue?
edited to add: please notice I said "parents" Not distinguishing between any type of parent, no need to. Parents who adopt are just like the child after adoption, as-if born to.
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You see Beth - that's the core of the issue. There are no good answers to your question.
Here's the scenario. Lets say I have a 12 year old child that cannot live safely in my home (adopted or bio, doesn't matter).
Option 1 - find an RTC to take them. Well, RTCs are expensive. The one where my daughter was costs $15,000 a month. So, you get insurance to cover it. Well, insurance, including Medical Assistance, will only cover it for a specific length of time. Not years and years.
Option 2 - contact DSS. In many states, DSS only becomes involved if the parents are abusive or neglectful. Even if you contact them yourself, they only work with parents that have abused. So, you have to call and say "I am abusive/neglectful". In which case, courts jump in, the parents are given a reunification plan to work and the kids go in a foster home.
In some states, mine included, parents can voluntarily give up rights to the state and not be charged. The child then goes into foster care. Honestly, the foster care system created the problem to start with, so it's hard to count on them for assistance.
Option 3 - do a private adoption, aka re home. So, how do you find a family? Once you are to this point, your friends are of no help. So,where to look - the Internet. I have met the most amazing parents via the Internet. Some of my best friends I met right here at Adoption. com. Honestly, Internet makes sense to me
I'm not at all saying its ok to drop your child off in a parking lot. There are people who abuse a system not matter what. The the general sweeping statement that the yahoo/Facebook/Internet system is awful is not true. The vast majority of children who are re homed are done legally. I even look at these sites and think about these kids.
I know the mental health care system needs to be improved in most states so that families can access care. Further, the systems all need to be more inviting and work together: mental health, social services, insurance or medicaid, public education, juvenile justice, etc. Most places all of those institutions just refuse to help, turn parents away, or worse parents are threatened with neglect charges for trying to get help.
But denials for treatment can be appealed, and in the meantime, parents need respite. If parents can get adequate respite, that may help them parent while they're trying to get treatment.
"It's never okay to give a child to strangers on the internet"? Well, now, wait a minute. Our state has a directory of licensed child care providers. When I find one on the site and take my daughter to enroll her, technically, the provider is a stranger, but I know she's okay because not only is she licensed, she has a star rating on the site that tells me how good her program is.
When I am fostering and I want respite, if my agency/county can't find a respite parent, there are internet listservs where I can meet other foster parents. I know they're licensed because I can call their caseworkers and make sure. So there's nothing wrong with using the internet if you are responsible and only use licensed providers and make sure you are comfortable.
But I think respite--especially reasonably priced--is really hard to come by. Parents just don't know where to look for respite. My state has a website called Colorado Respite Coalition, but hardly anyone knows about it, the search feature is difficult to use, and there is no way to search by price. There needs to be a website dedicated to helping families facing possible disruption find licensed respite providers, clearly stating it is up to the parent(s) to verify the license of the provider.
I think there is a huge difference between "care provider I found out about on the internet and went from there" and "care provider I have no other background on than what I read on the internet."
Those two things seem to be getting equated pretty frequently on this thread to make a point, they're really... not anything alike at all.
There's nothing wrong with connecting via the internet. There is something wrong with turning a vulnerable minor child over to someone with no other connection than through a computer screen.
I understand what you are saying about respite being a possible solution and about finding child are providers on the Internet, however, there are problems with that.
We are talking, mostly, about very disturbed kids. Kids that are unsafe, kids to be afraid of. There are very few respite providers that take these kids, and the are very expensive. I have used them. It is not a long term solution.
Same with child care providers. They won't take extremely disturbed kids. We are talking about kids that need to be in locked down facilities.
It really isn't that easy.
Again, I'm not saying to drop your kids of with total strangers is right. But the huge majority of re homing, even done over the Internet, is legit.
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Lorraine123
Again, I'm not saying to drop your kids of with total strangers is right. But the huge majority of re homing, even done over the Internet, is legit.
But what are you basing this on? A gut feeling? There's no way to track these rehomings right now and even the report can't tell us what happened to a large # of these kids. I don't believe that the majority done on the internet is legit. I think it's the old time wild west. There's no regulation, there's very few consequences and there's a lot of incentive when you feel desperate.
Yes we know that some parents lie. We know that kids with Rad lie.
You know what we also know, that kids in trauma act out. That often the trauma stops their development at an age that is younger than their years. That sometimes what appears to be a lie and maninpulation is a lack of development and language. I'm not positive that every RAD diagnosis is valid, or that every FAS diagnosis is valid. Sometimes, when a child doesn't fit immediately or has trouble adjusting, parents can be too quick to label in an attempt to find an answer.
The problem is 2 fold.
1. Parents aren't being given the right information up front to make a proper decision. If they had to take extensive classes that correctly shared the possible trauma and examples of how bad it can actually be, some of those people would choose not to adopt. And that would be a good thing actually. If agencies (and DFACs) wouldn't hide information from PAPs in order to get a child adopted, some of these situations wouldn't occur as well. They don't have an incentive to give the right information though because for the agency, they only make money if they move more people through the system. And for DFACs, too many times they're overworked with too many cases (at least in my state) and they just want to get these kids in homes and off their plate. I was surprised when Russia shut down that there were people on this forum (not intending to call out any specific person) who thought that kids from orphanages in Russia were less likely to have serious issues than kids in foster care in America. That is a huge part of the education disconnect with these kids.
2. There are basically NO services post adoption. In most states you can't go to DFACS and get help. You can't turn your child over without being charged with abandonment. Insurance only covers so much and in many areas, if your child really is suffering from RAD, it can be hard to find a counselor who is actually qualified to help. That has to change. We as a country cannot continue to adopt other countries children when we aren't prepared to help them and that is what is happening in these cases.
I get that when a child needs to be rehomed that there aren't many options. I get that in these situations the parents are desperate. However, that doesn't excuse giving your child to someone that you have only interacted with on an internet forum, email, etc and who you don't have a valid homestudy on, that you only give a POA to take care of your child. If you aren't willing to pay an attorney to properly terminate your rights and legally place the child with a new adoptive family, then you are guilty of abandonment in my opinion. Sorry. And if the family in question isn't willing to pay for a real homestudy, then you shouldn't even consider them. If you adopted and don't know what a real homestudy looks like, you have a bigger issue. I would expect to see an entire ICPC packet.
There's a real problem in my opinion in trying to justify or condone or act like any of the APs in the report are okay in their actions. Instead, we should be focusing on how do we stop the problem, how do we bring awareness so that fewer APs find themself unprepared in this situation with no options. That's what I think this discussion should be about. Too much of this feels like justifying the actions of the APs in the report.
dmariehill
If you aren't willing to pay an attorney to properly terminate your rights and legally place the child with a new adoptive family, then you are guilty of abandonment in my opinion. Sorry. And if the family in question isn't willing to pay for a real homestudy, then you shouldn't even consider them.
I have to agree with that opinion from what I have experienced in my life.
I've taken POA for dozens of kids. Parents couldn't/wouldn't do it anymore. I did/do not want to adopt, and will not, it's not necessary to raise a child, or to help raise a child.
In every single case I feel it wasn't the kids issues that made it happen, but moreso the parents. Not saying that some of the kids didn't do crazy things, or extremely violent things, we've dealt with the whole boatload of it, including marking their territory with their own pee and ****.
Some, the parent was sick and dying, some kids were runaways and parents just gave up on them, some wanted the troublemakers gone, some parents took our help too. The first and the later are the only ones I feel weren't abandoning or neglecting their parental duties. I probably should have ratted them out and gotten them charged, but I never did. Was always concerned with the kid, their parents needed to get out of the way, move on or step up.
I didn't meet any of them on the internet, they knew me, or knew of me thru family or community. Several didn't know me well enough IMO. I've never done a homestudy. When they found out their troubled violent doped up runaway found a place to stay, they signed the papers and ran.
Anyone know what the sentence is for child abandonment? If that is what a parent is going to do, then I think they should take the hit to get out of it.
And what happens if you do get involved with foster, but don't want to RU?
I really do think that whoever/whatever that allows and approves these adoptions, needs to be there postly to observe and step in with assistance when needed.
The report isn't trying to tell us about the people who do it legally. The report is trying to get ratings. So they are going to focus on only the most extreme stories. I know many people who have adopted from disruptions and there are records because they went through the court system where things are recorded. They also sent notification to the original countries where required. No one has tried to find out where all the kids were, the reporter just wanted good stories. Legal adoptions don't make good stories. Good parents don't get ratings. No one is trying to justify the actions of the small group of parents the reporter talked about. The problem is the implication that those few represent the group as a whole. I could do a report on a city and say 2000 children live there, and then focus on six who were abused in some way. I could go in depth about the story of those six and write it in such a way that would imply I am talking about all 2000 children in this town. It would be easy to do. A big headline that says "parents in this town abuse children", while true it would be misleading. I could state the 2000 number again and then mention that many of those children end up in the hospital. Then jump into a horror story about a parent who injured a child terribly. My story is still factual, I may have left out that a lot of the children end up in the hospital for other reasons, like getting tubes in the ears, or to get x-rayed for an injury that was sports related. A story implying that all the parents of this town were abusive would have the parents upset, not because they were defending the abusers, but because the story was implying something untrue. I have had friends who know very little about adoption who have asked me about it, because what they took away from the story is that all of the kids ever listed on those websites were handed off illegally. The story doesn't actually say that, it just implies it by leaving out the facts about those who do adoptions legally.
MomRaine said: The report isn't trying to tell us about the people who do it legally. The report is trying to get ratings. So they are going to focus on only the most extreme stories.
Who cares?
You know that the NCFA and JCICS and all the other higher-ups in adoption who "claim" to be the watch dogs and care-takers for adoption knew this was happening because they talk to their member agencies.
THEY DIDN'T DO ANYTHING...the NCFA proudly stated in their FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE statement that they had done four - count them four - presentations at their adoption conference in the last two years. That's it. They didn't address the issue seriously with a change to their membership requirements that had monitoring, and teeth of not being a member, so PAPs believed the agencies were the cream of the crop and would prepare them well for adopting. They patted themselves on the back that they addressed it at the conference...but their efforts had no affect apparently...wonder why...
[URL="https://www.adoptioncouncil.org/images/stories/091113_NCFA_Responds_to_Media_Reports_Regarding_the_Practice_of_Underground_Placements_of_Internationally_Adopted_Children.pdf"]https://www.adoptioncouncil.org/images/stories/091113_NCFA_Responds_to_Media_Reports_Regarding_the_Practice_of_Underground_Placements_of_Internationally_Adopted_Children.pdf[/URL]
Reuters and NBC did not have to be the ones who broke the story...the investigation Reuters and NBC did took two years - and yet the above press release covers the same time period...
The NCFA and JCICS and the CCAI and the NACAC could have already done that and put measures into to place to stop that happening, and then there would be no story to break.
But they didn't, and children are still being put in harms way - so somebody had to.
Kind regards,
Dickons
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momraine
The report isn't trying to tell us about the people who do it legally. The report is trying to get ratings. So they are going to focus on only the most extreme stories. I know many people who have adopted from disruptions and there are records because they went through the court system where things are recorded. They also sent notification to the original countries where required...... Legal adoptions don't make good stories. Good parents don't get ratings. .
I don't see this report implicating anyone except those who are participating in these types of activities. I don't see it as a statement about good parents at all.
And the reason they don't report on those who do it right, is there's no reason too. Those practices don't need changing. We don't need to shine a light into a well lit room. We need to shine a light into the darkened corners. These kids are just as important as any other kid in the world. They deserve happy loving homes. They deserve not to have additional trauma.
Let's think of it this way. . . . . So a couple gives birth to a baby. . . . several years later, kid is having all sorts of problems, rebellious, lying, being violent. . . . what do these parents do? Would we think it was okay for them to go online find a stranger with no vetting and just drop the kid off with a new family? I don't think that would be acceptable to many people. The expectation is that when you have a child, that child is yours - if they have medical issues, if they have psychological issues, whatever. You take care of them. Why is it different in adoption?
Whether this will work well in everyday life - at least they have seen the problem, studied it, found out what was needed, and, are actively trying to address it...kudo's to the UK...
[URL="http://www.familylaw.co.uk/articles/Adoptive-parents-access-support-fund-120913-099?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter"]Jordan Publishing[/URL]
Kind regards,
Dickons