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| Nicole Eason "Big Momma" |
Five children went to live with Eason and her husband Calvin, a sixth with Eason and her live-in companion Randy Winslow during a time when she was separated from Calvin. Winslow, who went by the name "lovethemcute," was subsequently convicted of possessing child pornography.
If the frantic adoptive parents had investigated Eason, they would have learned that child welfare authorities had taken away both of the Nicole and Calvin's biological children because of abuse. Children by babysat accused Eason and Calvin of sexual abuse. Furthermore, a child drowned while in Nicole Eason's care.
Children placed with Eason lived in squalor and were forced to sleep in the same bed with her. Fortunately, the children didn't stay long at Eason's home. When the adoptive parents and others learned of the the abuse, the children were removed; most went to foster care. As soon as a child left, Eason went back on the Internet and obtained another.
'I WOULD HAVE GIVEN MY CHILD AWAY TO A SERIAL KILLER'
According to a series of well-documented articles by Megan Twohey of Reuters, the Easons are part of a
"The practice is called 'private re-homing,' a term typically used by owners seeking new homes for pets." Part of the allure of re-homing [for the receiving family] is that "the process is far cheaper than formal adoptions" which can cost tens of thousands of dollars. "Taking custody through re-homing often costs nothing. In fact, taking a child may enable the new family to claim a tax deduction and draw government benefits. The Easons view re-homing as a way around a prying government, and a way to take a child inexpensively."
No governmental agency has direct responsibility for scrutinizing these placements, although the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children (ICPC) requires parents to notify child welfare authorities if a child is to be transferred outside of the family to a new home in a different state. This allows child welfare authorities to investigate the new home. However, failure to notify authorities rarely results in any penalty.
BETWEEN 10-25 PERCENT OF DOMESTIC ADOPTIONS 'FAIL'
In analyzing 5,029 posts over a five-year period from a Yahoo group, Adopting-from-Disruption, Twohey found on average one child per week was advertised for re-homing. "Most of the children ranged in age from 6 to 14...the youngest was 10 months old." At least 70 percent had been adopted from abroad, mostly from Ethiopia, Russia, Ukraine, and China. After learning what was happening on its site, Yahoo shut it down. A similar forum on Facebook, Way Stations of Love, remains active, but viewing it is unavailable to non-members.
Many of the re-homed children have experienced severe abuse; often they are sent to multiple homes, passed along as one family after another finds they are too difficult to handle. The U.S. Government estimates that between 10 and 25 percent of domestic adoptions fail. No authority tracks what happens after a child is brought to America but experts say the percentage of failure could be higher for foreign adoptees which means that at least 24,000 of the 243,000 foreign adoptees in the U. S. are no longer living with the parents who brought them here.
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| Jane |
The Whatcott's turned to the "underground network" and sent Inga to three different families. Inga says she was sexually molested in two of the homes. Nightlife Christian suggested the Whatcotts enlist the help of a therapist who had also adopted a Russian girls. The therapist took Inga into his home but the arrangement was temporary. The Whatcotts say the agency wouldn't provide any additional help. Inga was placed in a psychiatric hospital where she claimed she was molested by her therapist. Eventually Inga went to government-sanctioned foster homes. "Priscilla Whatcott spoke out about her experiences with her damaged Russian daughter and the perils faced by Americans who adopt from overseas. In Congressional testimony and media accounts, she couched the case as a consumer-rights issue: "Today, 16 years on, Whatcott still compares adopting Inga to buying 'a pig in a poke' or being sold a bill of goods.'"
Not all adoption disruption is underground. Author Joyce Maynard disrupted the adoption of two sisters she took from Ethiopia within a year after she adopted them, finding them a new home elsewhere. Blogger Anita Tedaldi terminated the adoption of her young son adopted from South America. Linda Carroll, the natural daughter of first mother and poet Paula Fox, and mother of singer Courtney Love, adopted a three year old African-American boy. They moved to New Zealand and rhree years later she placed the boy with a family in New Zealand. Carroll returned to the U.S. without the boy but he reunited with the Carroll family after he graduated from high school.
MORE REGULATION MAY HELP BUT IT'S NOT THE ANSWER
Oregon-based Holt International Children's Services, one of the oldest and largest foreign adoption agencies, responded quickly to the Reuters articles. "It is sickening and disheartening because abuses by a few can prevent many children from finding a place in the world with parents and siblings who love them" wrote Susan Soonkeum Cox, Holt's vice president for policy and external affairs in the Portland Oregonian.
Cox argues that increased regulation under the Intercountry Adoption Universal Accreditation Act of 2012 which will go into effect July 14, 2014 will "narrow the gap between unethical practitioners and competent professional service providers." We hope this is true but the fact remains that as long as there's money to be made corruption will continue.
As the supply of infants dries up in response to clamping down on trafficking, changing mores, and greater help to families, adoption agencies including Holt and New York-based Spence-Chapin are turning to older and disabled children. Couples enchanted by angelic pictures of children on adoption agencies websites may be quick to ignore warning about behavior problems. The Hague Convention which sets standards in countries which have agreed to its terms, require prospective adoptive parents to have only ten hours of training compared to state requirements of 30 hours for those who adopt out of foster care. And regardless of what the standards are, children ripped from everything familiar are likely to have trouble adjusting, and frustrated adoptive parents may continue to resort to re-homing, or worse, abuse the children.Meanwhile, the 100,000 American children in foster care available for adoption continue to be overlooked by those seeking to adopt. These children are more likely to adjust to their adoptive families because they know English and American culture. Families who adopt from the American foster care system receive support from child welfare agencies including counseling, cash grants, medical care, training, and the like.-- jane
_______________________________________
SOURCES
Americans use the Internet to abandon children adopted from overseas
Joyce Maynard announces failure of her adoptive family
Terminating an Adoption
Tough standards are essential to protect children
Holt International Adoption
FROM FMF:
Joyce Maynard's adoption "disruption"
Returning a Child: It happens More than You Think
Spence-Chapin out of the infant adoption business
The Child Catchers exposes the stench of international adoption--and domestic adoption too
FURTHER READING
Her Mother's Daughter: A Memoir of the Mother I Never Knew and of My Daughter, Courtney Love
"Carroll's memoir is far less tell-all than it is her personal recollections of growing up feeling alienated from her adoptive family, her peers, and her religion. Born with an inquisitive mind, Linda has trouble relating to her tightly wound adoptive mother, Louella, and her sexually abusive adoptive father, Jack. While her friendships with other girls are deep and stable, her relationships with men prove to be much more complicated. Carroll finds herself pregnant at 18 by a man she does not love, but she marries him and gives birth to a girl, Courtney. The marriage does not last, and Carroll spends the next decade in search of happiness, marrying twice again and going as far as New Zealand as her relationship with Courtney deteriorates. Years later, when Courtney is pregnant with her own child, Carroll finally seeks her own birth mother and is surprised to discover she is renowned writer Paula Fox. A thoughtful memoir of one woman's coming-of-age in the turbulent 1960s and 1970s."-- Kristine Huntley Copyright © American Library Association.
The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking, and the New Gospel of Adoption
An important voice for adoption reform and should be read by those who
shape adoption policy and those considering adopting from abroad or
donating to an international adoption agency or foreign orphanage. It's
laden with facts and figures, but is never dull. FMF highly recommends The Child Catchers.--jane
ORDER BY CLICKING ON TITLE OR BOOK JACKET.
ORDER BY CLICKING ON TITLE OR BOOK JACKET.
Adoptive parents in Illinois who may be struggling to raise a challenging child may want to apply to the Keep the Promise program. This is well-funded but under-publicized state program that provides free in-home mental health therapy for families formed by adoption and guardianship. The therapists are specially trained in attachment disorders and childhood mental illness.
ReplyDeleteMy husband works as a therapist for this program. Most of children he works with have spent some time in Foster Care or have been adopted internationally.
I don't know what other states offer to adoptive families, but it is probably worth checking out. If you are an adoptive parent and you cannot find resources, consider starting a local support group. Use a good book on Reactive Attachment Disorder as your manual.
Keep the Promise of Illinois uses evidence-based therapies and has proven to be effective in keeping adoptive children in their new homes and helping them bond with their new families.
As an adoptive parent, the practice of re-homing sickens me. We've adopted both domestically and internationally (2 siblings from foster care and 2 from Russia). Both sets of children were adopted at roughly the same ages (7-9).
ReplyDeleteI can tell you that without a doubt that the children we adopted from foster care suffer from more issues than my Russian adoptees.
Adopting from foster care is not some waltz in the park, as you seem to make it. These children are disturbed, lonely, scared, and abused.
I would never advise anyone to "just adopt from foster care" as you do. These children aren't being overlooked, they are being looked at. But their issues are simply too much for any "normal" couple to handle!
Thanks for the Illinois referral, Anon.
ReplyDeleteJessie, it's certainly true that some American foster kids are more difficult than some foreign adopted kids. However, Megan Twohey found after reviewing 5,029 listings for kids to be re-homed, that 70 percent were foreign. Far more kids are adopted from foster care each year, over 50,000 in 2007 and 2008 compared to 17,000 and 11,000 foreign kids according to the US Child Information Gateway.
ReplyDeleteWe at FMF advocate for adopting from foster care over international adoption because adoption should be child-centered. When you adopt from foster care, you can be reasonably assured that the child needed a home and his bio-parents could not care for him. There's no such assurances with foreign adoption. We know that many of these children were taken from families that with a little help could have kept their kids. Because of wide-spread corruption, governments have curtailed and in some cases shut down adoption out of their countries.
The entire thing makes me really sad. What kind of person adopts a kid and then "rehomes" them to a pedophile?!!
ReplyDeleteI can't believe that you only have a few comments about this.
We should all be outraged!
And people wonder why countries are closing adoptions to the U.S.
It is these kind of shenanigans, people.
Have we lost all humanity?
I agree that we should all be outraged but not simply about kids "rehomed" via failed IA adoptions.
ReplyDeleteI feel just as strongly about non adopted children shuffled to distant family members (often virtual strangers)boyfriend de jours, neighbors, etc. How many children, non adoptive, do you know living with those other than their immediate families? Is there oversight for them? How many of these biological families are still receiving government aid for these children despite not caring for them on a day to day basis?
How many children of illegals shuffled to near strangers when their parents face prosecution, detainment or deportment? All done beyond the scenes, with no way to safeguard these children.
Do you recognize how many Foster children end up bumped from their homes with no meaningful follow up by their overburdened case workers? How many once Foster children reunited with their biological parents end up not being parented by them and instead on the street, in shelters or "sent" to another home?
I urge you to dig a bit deeper if in fact you are truly concerned for this overlooked population of vulnerable children ~ adoptive AND Foster/biological.
I work with Foster Families and understand firsthand this crisis exists in both adoptive and non adoptive populations.
Please read the original 5 part Reuters article to get a full picture of this issue:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.reuters.com/investigates/adoption/#article/part1
Adopting from foster care is not the solution to the problem of re-homing or failed adoptions, nor is completely forbidding all international adoptions, which is not going to happen. The one thing that can be done to prevent adoptive parents from swapping and returning kids like merchandise is to legislate against casual handing off kids this way, either over the internet or through church-run networks. No, that won't cure everything wrong with adoption, but it is the best remedy for the specific horrific problems outlined in this article. These websites and groups are not illegal now. Making them illegal and mandating state oversight of any transfer of children could prevent some of this abuse and heartache.
Branding adoptees with "reactive attachment disorder" is not the answer either, as so many so-called therapies for this controversial condition do more harm than good, including some deaths of children.In at least some of these cases, it is the adopters and their unrealistic expectations and sadistic behavior that are the problem, not the traumatized child.
Adoptees who comment here, where are you on this horrid story of adoptee abuse? As a mother it makes my skin crawl and I am furious.
"I can't believe that you only have a few comments about this."
ReplyDelete"Adoptees who comment here, where are you on this horrid story of adoptee abuse?"
Any adopted person who reads this post is so sick to their stomach and enraged that we are speechless.
I think we are talking Apples and oranges here Sue.
ReplyDeleteThese people, these "parents" set up egroups so they could pawn their adopted kids off on pedophiles and you are telling us we should adopt from foster care?
Your cause is important but it has nothing to do with the criminal behavior that is the subject of this post.
Sue, you bring up some valid points. My foster daughter who reunified with her mother is doing extremely well (both mother and daughter are), after a horrific start that led them to foster care in the first place. They are five years reunified now and absolutely radiant (apart from the usual hiccups all families face).
ReplyDeleteI am told by many social workers that my foster daughter's happy ending is rare. In fact one of my close friends, a fellow foster mom, once had a baby boy placed with her due to an abusive situation at home - eventually, both his parents ended up in jail. My friend fell in love with this baby boy and wanted to adopt him, but he was taken from her home and placed with a distant "aunt" who took in all the children that various members of her family had lost to foster care. She was living in one room with ten children - an OK life for this baby boy, except there were strong indications the "aunt" was taking in these kids to make a living through the monthly state assistance she was receiving for each child (about $450 per child, so $4,500 a month). Another friend of mine hates foster care because she feels many of her cousins got messed up by repeated sojourns into foster care followed by reunifications with their families. She says they are drifters, lacking stability, to this day.
Foster care does have a lot of associated problems but, in some cases, I have seen good foster parents and social workers be a real resource helping keep biological families together. I know one foster mom who has done this for so many families for over 40 years now that I am in awe.
I never suggested that adoption from foster care will solve the problem of re-homing foreign kids. I encouraged those interested in helping a child to consider adopting from foster care rather than internationally because they will get more support if (when) there are problems.
ReplyDeleteLaws forbiding this kind of passing off kids might send a few folks to jail costing tax payers money to invetigate, prosecute, and incarcerate them, but it would also result in these kids being dumped into state child welfare programs, i. e. foster and group care and treatment facilities. State child welfare agencies are stretched as it is. As commentators noted, they sometimes make mistakes. I urge our readers to check out the website of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform for excellent discussions and recommendations regarding the many problems in the child welfare system.
What you have here are people, some of whom are well-meaning, duped into paying big bucks (with the tax payers kicking in $12,650) for children they are not prepared to handle while adoption agencies wash their hands of the affair.
The answer is to stop these adoptions in the first place. This may happen of its own accord as people realize that taking these kids will not meet their needs to be parents and they can't meet the kids' needs for families. Leaving these children in their own countries and helping there would be the best for many of them.
An alternative, I suppose, would be to require adoption agencies to assume responsibility when an adoption disrupts. Enforcing this would be difficult. Some would just go out of business and the states would have to assume responsibility.
Talk about triggering. I hope no one thinks an adoptee can read this post without flipping out. Any child who is given up for adoption is extremely vulnerable. If NPs don't take responsibility for a child, there is no telling what will happen. My natural mother was told I was going to a different state and a different family than the one I actually went to. She really had no idea what happened to me. I am not saying that BSE mothers had a) any choice about adoption or b) any options but closed adoption.
ReplyDeleteI guess with today's open adoption it is somewhat better. At least the NPs know something about the PAPs. However, even then the APs can move or cut off contact. The only way to know that your child is safe is to raise him or her yourself ( provided, of course, that you are in a safe environment).
And some of the bonding programs are highly controversial. So after the adults f**k up the kid, it's now the kid's job to bond with strangers? Many adopted children can't bond, they attach. See Verrier. She explains the difference.
And Grandparents, listen up (this is not directed at you, Kellie C), you need to stop assuming that your inconvenient grandchild can just be given to strangers and all will be well. This world is full of crazies and you would be doing the right thing by helping your daughter or son to raise YOUR grandchild. You need to stop being brainwashed by the adoption industry that because these couples sooo want a baby that they will provide a fabulous home for a child. You never know.
Jane, I really cannot follow your logic. While the article stated that 70% of re-homed children were internationally adopted, that leaves 30% who were domestic adoptions, still a substantial number of children traded like merchandise with no supervision of any sort who were born and adopted here. Do you really think that those same adoptive parents would have been any better parents and not traded in older kids with problems adopted from foster care?
ReplyDeleteYou recommend state adoption from foster care because you say there is more help for adoptive parents from the state when there are problems and better screening, yet you do not want the children of disrupted adoption to go into state care! I don't get it. Wouldn't they be marginally better off in state care with some supervision than the children in the article given with no checks or professional intervention to pedophiles and fanatics and child hoarders? Of course there are problems with foster care as well, it is as broken a system as International adoption, and the children can be just as traumatized and difficult to raise due to the abuse they have suffered.
If I understand you properly, you feel it would be a waste of time and resources to outlaw re-homing sites. I agree that parents who would throw away their "forever" child this way should never have been adopting in the first place.But the only way to prevent any of these adoptions is more stringent screening and followup that would have to come from some government agency, whether the adoptions are international or domestic.
Some legislation outlawing just handing kids over to anyone who will take them has to be better than no supervision or penalties for this at all.
Robin, I understand how painful it must be to adoptees to hear about this, and feel too sick to say anything. It is a real kick in the gut. So much for "forever families."
Reform talk has a good post on adoption disruption and "rehoming":
ReplyDeletehttp://www.reformtalk.net/2013/09/16/reform-talk-statement-on-disruptions-and-road-map-to-whole-reform/
I agree with the person who says it should be illegal to just hand these kids over to anyone willing to take them. However difficult these kids may be to handle, it's just adding insult to injury to palm them off under the radar to someone who may damage them even more than they've been damaged already.
It's cynical to suggest that the practice should be allowed to continue until it effectively burns itself out as "people realize that taking these kids will not meet their needs to be parents and they can't meet the kids' needs for families." It makes the kids sound like collateral damage, just incidental means to an intended end
I'm not suggesting that re-homing be allowed to continue until it burns itself out. I'm suggesting that there is no practical way to stop it.
ReplyDeleteIf we set up a system where people could place their adopted foreign kids into foster care as soon as the kids become difficult, we'd have a horrendous problem. People would not hesitate to adopt thinking they could always dump the kid if he got to be too much.
Legislators could pass laws requiring child welfare officials to approve every move from an adoptive home. This would be another burden on state agencies already stretched. I doubt that state agencies could find good foster or adoptive homes for these kids; many would end up in institutions at significant tax payer expense. And children are abused in these institutions as well as in foster and adoptive care.
As maryanne noted, kids in domestic foster care adoptions are also dumped. However, transfer of children adopted from foster care or transferring foster children without state permission IS illegal and state officials can take action against these parents. The fact that they don't is indicative of lack of resources. The sad truth is that there are not enough good homes for our damaged kids. Adding thousands of foreign children just makes the problem worse.
We need to put money into helping families here in order to prevent kids from being damaged. If you'll take a look at the work of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, you'll see a lot of research on programs that work, allowing kids to stay in their homes. This frees up foster care and social worker time for kids who cannot stay at home.
What's happening to the foreign kids being dumped is tragic, but putting them in new homes is not the answer. It's like running an ambulance service at the bottom of a cliff. Many of these kids would have been better off if they had been left in their own countries.
Restricting foreign adoptions through more stringent licensing of adoption agencies, greater limits on who can adopt, and requiring better education of people seeking to adopt would be helpful. But again, scrutinizing all these adoptions by state officials pulls money out of the domestic system. And no matter how much scrutiny occurs, kids will fall through the cracks.
Stopping foreign adoptions is a better answer.
Jane wrote:"If we set up a system where people could place their adopted foreign kids into foster care as soon as the kids become difficult, we'd have a horrendous problem. People would not hesitate to adopt thinking they could always dump the kid if he got to be too much."
ReplyDeleteThere already IS such a system, with NO guidelines or accountability at all, the re-homing system and people are dumping kids from all over into it right now. Do you really find this preferable to these children going into state foster care? Do you really think that the money spent on private adoption would go to help children in our country's foster system if international adoption were totally outlawed? I don't think so.And I do not see international adoption being outlawed in the near future. What about those children already here and being traded around by adopters like bad pets? According to the article this is not illegal in many places as long as simple transfer of guardianship paper is included, and in those places where it is illegal like crossing state lines, it is not pursued or prosecuted vigorously. I did not see anything indicating this was because of overburdened foster care systems or lack of funds. It should be a criminal matter, pure and simple.
I think that any parent, adoptive or biological, can surrender children to foster care already if they cannot handle them. The difficulty is then getting them back if that is what they want. The people who would rather "re-home" do this to avoid any investigation of themselves, their parenting, or why they are abandoning the child.
"I'm not suggesting that re-homing be allowed to continue until it burns itself out. I'm suggesting that there is no practical way to stop it. "
ReplyDeleteMaybe and maybe not. But making "re-homing" an indictable offense would at least send a clear message.
If placing a troublesome child in foster care were as simple as taking him to the child welfare office office, half the teens in the US would be in foster care!
ReplyDeleteParents are not free to place their children in foster care if they cannot handle them. The state child welfare system only takes kids who have been removed from their parents by the courts for abuse or neglect.
Parents who are not abusive or neglectful may be able to get help from public mental health agencies or from public schools if they can convince education authorities that their child is disabled. Other than this, parents are pretty much on their own, although their health insurance may pay for some therapy.
Dumping a child on unfit parties could be considered neglect and courts could take jurisdiction over the children and place the child in the custody of the state which in turn would place the child in foster care or treatment facility. The state might try to obtain contributions from the parents.
Thus, it is possible under current laws for these children to go into foster care. Dumping a child in an unfit home might also constitute the crime of child endangerment and the parents could be prosecuted and jailed.
But again, all these procedures are messy and expensive which is probably why states are not pursuing them.
What's really going on is that people desiring a child because they want to something to nurture, for religious reasons, for companionship, altruism, whatever are convinced by the adoption industry to pay big bucks to fetch children from far off lands because the product will be better than free homegrown ones. Then if the product is not as represented, these people try to pass the kids off to someone else. Sure we need to help these passed-off kids, but we also need to shut this system down.
"I'm not suggesting that re-homing be allowed to continue until it burns itself out. I'm suggesting that there is no practical way to stop it. "
ReplyDeleteThere may not be a way to stop it but it could be at least made illegal. Currently, any parent (adoptive or not) can sign a power of attorney giving custody of their child to another person. It should not be possible to transfer custody in this manner.
http://www.care2.com/causes/kids-are-people-too-you-cant-just-give-away-the-ones-you-dont-like.html#ixzz2fZmHufPL
ReplyDeleteThe above link is to a fine article by Robin Marty that makes connections between "re-homing" and other factors, such as the growing phenomena of what are essentially small private orphanages in the States (as described by Kathryn Joyce in her new book, "The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking and the New Gospel of Adoption") and the lack of support for families raising seriously troubled children that was revealed when Nebraska enacted a safe haven law allowing parents to dump kids up to nineteen years of age.
The author sums up by saying, "The concern is not the fact that the adoptive parents are being asked to show more dedication to their children than biological parents, but that by using an underground system and turning over children to unvetted strangers, that they are not in fact doing their best to protect the child that is in their custody. If any parent decides that is in both their own and the child's best interest to no longer be part of the family, then that is a decision that they should be comfortable alerting the authorities to, and allowing the child to be placed in a better environment that has been thoroughly investigated for safety.
Children deserve to be protected, not just passed off to anyone willing to open their doors."
The Evangelical Orphan Boom, by Kathryn Joyce:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/22/opinion/sunday/the-evangelical-orphan-boom.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
"For too long, well-meaning Americans have brought their advocacy and money to bear on an adoption industry that revolves around Western demand. Adoption can be wonderful when it’s about finding the right family for a child who is truly in need, but it can also be tragic and unjust if it involves deception, removes children from their home countries when other options are available, or is used as a substitute for addressing the underlying problems of poverty and inequality. We can no longer be blind to the collateral damage that good intentions bring."
I am sick physically and emotionally to read about this. I avoided it and then read and cried and had a visceral reaction. The things that were said about adoptees and done to them: heartless. Abandonment all over again. To read that AP saying she was finished after FIVE days made me furious. Okay, maybe she needed support. But if you are finished after five days, you have NO business adopting in the first place, IMO.
ReplyDeleteMy worst fear in childhood and adolescence was to be "sent back" (whatever that would be) or rehomed. I tried to be the best little adoptee I could, never giving trouble. I didn't act out much. I self-harmed to deal with the anxiety. And even with APs who are very understanding and loving, I was subject to that worry. It circulates constantly in society, in the whispers and admonishments that we should be grateful, that we are unworthy, etc.
I am angry about the victim blaming. Adam Pertman and his wide-eyed incredulity irritates me tremendously. I am sick of the apologists for the adoption industry.
At least the seaminess is getting attention now. But CHIFF is a diversion tactic, not change.
It is all depressing and sick.
Viv
Excuse me, anoymous: Did you see sidebar on the blog? PLEASE look at the sidebar on the right. I quoted Joyce.
ReplyDeleteCool, but...I have the feeling you are the selfsame author yourself, or a publicist. As I said, cool.
For families looking for help in AZ. There are options available.
ReplyDeleteThere is the possibility of filing for help by contacting your local police department. They have statutes in place to help with incorrigible children.
The results of this filing will involve CPS and may take time out of your schedule, but the help received for the child is important.
We received a call from my god-daughter's lawyer who needed to place her at the age of 14. She was arrested for incorrigibility and her bio parents would not take her back into their home.
My husband and I discussed the situation taking into consideration our 4 natural children who were younger than Bree. WE met with her parents and the lawyer and agreed to take Bree into our home. With the aid of the attorney, a power of attorney was drawn up and the courts released Bree into our care.
When we received Bree, she was on probation, using drugs, sexually active, had dropped out of school, violent, etc.
The courts withdrew themselves about 2 weeks later she was taken off probation and her care was our sole responsibility.
The local mental health community has several programs available. We choose a well established program that specializes in children who have suffered trauma through abuse, neglect, etc.
At no time did we give up hope or quit trying. The decision to take Bree into our home was made with the knowledge that we would be her parental figures. We knew that it could cause issues with our "birth children." and decided to take the chance.
Bree is now 26. lives with her husband and beautiful 4 year old son(our grandson) and is doing wonderfully.
Chicago Tribune editorial: Shut down Internet adoptions:
ReplyDeletehttp://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-10-31/opinion/adopt-ct-edit-1031-20131031_1_child-welfare-adoptions-two-children