WHAT IS ADOPTION?
Adoption is the permanent, legal transfer of all parental rights and obligations from one person or couple to another person or couple. Adoptive parents are real parents. Adoptive parents have the same rights and responsibilities as parents whose children were born to them. An adopted child has the same legal rights and privileges as birth children.
WHO ARE THE CHILDREN WHO ARE AVAILABLE FOR ADOPTION?
More than 120,000 children wait for permanent homes in the United States. Most are school-aged or older. There are brothers and sisters who need to stay together. More than 60% of the children come from minority cultures. The majority are boys. Many have emotional, physical, learning disabilities or mental retardation. All are waiting for the love and security that only a permanent family can offer.
WHO CAN ADOPT?
All kinds of people choose to adopt‹there is no one "acceptable" type. Agencies will consider single, married, divorced and same sex applicants. Agency requirements vary, but the age range most acceptable is usually 25 and up and often depends on the age of the child. There are women and men who are highly educated with well-respected jobs, high school graduates with blue-collar jobs, people with grown children, and others who want to care for a child with special needs. They are all capable people who have a lot of love to share.
HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE TO ADOPT?
The time frame, like the cost, varies with the agency and the type of child being adopted. The wait is typically between two and seven years for a healthy infant. If the prospective family has a completed home study, children with special needs can often be adopted quickly, within several months.
WHAT IS A HOME STUDY?
The home study is an educational process designed to help the agency get to know you and teach you about adoption and its impact on children and families. You will attend a series of meetings with a social worker that will provide more in-depth information. Social workers want to be sure that a person or couple can provide a safe and nurturing environment for a new child in their home. The homestudy process varies from agency to agency. Some conduct individual and joint interviews with a husband and wife; others conduct group homestudies with several families at one time. Most ask applicants to provide written information about themselves and their life experiences.
WHERE ARE THE CHILDREN LIVING WHILE WAITING TO BE ADOPTED?
Most children who are waiting for permanent families in the United States (those with special needs) live in foster or group homes because their parents were unable to care for them. Often, personal and family problems made it impossible for the parents to maintain a home for their children. Most of these children have been abused, neglected or abandoned.
HOW DOES FOSTER CARE DIFFER FROM ADOPTION?
Foster care is meant to be temporary shelter for a child; generally the plan is for the parents to take their child back when they are able. If that fails, the child is legally freed from their birth parents and made available for adoption. Once adopted, the child becomes a legal member of a family other than his/her biological one.
CAN THE BIRTH PARENTS TAKE A CHILD BACK?
In order for a child to be adopted, the birth parents have to relinquish legal custody or their rights have to be terminated. With most agency adoptions, a child is already legally free for adoption before a placement occurs. While cases where a parent changes his/her mind (usually before an adoption is finalized) are highly publicized, they occur infrequently.
CAN I ADOPT A CHILD IN A DIFFERENT STATE?
Yes. The Adoption and Safe Families Act, passed in 1997, requires state agencies to speed up a child's move from foster care to adoption by establishing time frames for permanency planning and guidelines for when a child must be legally freed for adoption. The bill also removes geographic barriers to adoption by requiring that states not delay or deny a placement if an approved family is available outside the state.
CAN I ADOPT A CHILD OF ANOTHER RACE?
Yes. In October 1995, the Multi-Ethnic Placement Act became effective. This act and subsequent revisions bar any agency involved in adoption that receives federal funding from discriminating because of race when considering adoption opportunities for children.
SHOULD I BE A FOSTER PARENT BEFORE I ADOPT?
In order to adopt, it is not necessary to begin as a foster parent. Foster families should be able to adopt the child in their care, if the child becomes legally free. Becoming a foster parent may increase your chances of adopting a young child.
WOW! IT'S AMAZING HOW FAR WE HAVE ALL COME TOGETHER!
What started with our first sole project called The Heart Gallery, has blossomed into 10 incredibly successful programs. None of this could have occurred without the wonderful support from this community, from various sources including volunteers, sponsors, photographers, in-kind donors and many more.
Lane County is full of generous and giving souls who want to make a difference, and manyhave stepped up and following is a result of what can be done when we are all on the same team and working TOGETHER.
HEART GALLERY: The Heart Gallery of Lane County is a portrait exhibit to raise awareness of the needs of Lane County Children; those waiting and hoping for their own adoptive family, mentor or CASA to love and protect them. Professional photographers volunteer to take compelling portraits. These beautifully framed and matted portraits are then displayed along with the children's bio in various venues. We are now in 6 locations, including a different church each month, Eugene Airport, Gateway Mall, Oakway Center, Ray's in Creswell, Brewed Awakening, and coming soon a show in Cottage Grove. On the average we receive 50 plus inquiries per week. DHS foster/adoption orientation class size, adoption inquiries, and general applicants to DHS have more than doubled since the inception of the Heart Gallery.
WEB SITES: Our websites, www.afamilyforeverychild.org and www.lanecountyheartgallery.org receive over 50 calls a week from out of state families who already have completed home studies. There are so many inquiries as a result of the websites, that some of the kids intended to be a part of the Heart Gallery, end up being placed prior to even being photographed!
HEART GALLERY CHILD OF THE MONTH/WEEK: We started monthly and now areweekly. This has been a very successful media campaign in conjunction with KVAL-TV, KKNU radio and the Register-Guard (generously donated by Bi-Mart). We have over a 90% success rate for placement of featured children.
BUSINESS ADVOCATE PROGRAM: This program was developed for those businesses that may not have ample room for a large display, yet wanted to be an advocate for the Heart Gallery. These businesses have included banks, dental offices, real estate offices, retail stores, markets and more. They can highlight a child in their business or store window. In 2008 we planned to display photos in digital frames so more of the children can be seen in more locations.
HEART GALLERY FAITH BASED PROGRAM: The Faith Based component of the Lane County Heart Gallery was designed specifically to reach out to local churches and faith based organizations, in turn, allowing them an opportunity for outreach into the local community. Our primary method of reaching local congregations is to bring the Heart Gallery exhibit, a beautifully framed collection of professional photographs of actual children awaiting adoption displayed on easels, to the church for a month long venue. We offer an information table with knowledgeable staff to answer questions, a touching three minute DVD that can be played during a church service, bulletin inserts and church follow up. We are currently at our 9th church in the Eugene/Springfield area.
HEART GALLERY MENTOR PROGRAM: This program resulted from the huge response from our community to the 3 older teens in our original Heart Gallery who were in search of mentors. We now have 25 plus certified mentors, 20 matches and 57 more kids. During our interview we evaluate teens for potential permanency including existing family and connections. We also work on an independent living program to give teens the tools they need to have successful futures. Our goal, if we cannot find an adoptive family, is to have them leave foster care with a permanent connected person in their lives.
FAMILY FINDING: This 6 month training that we sponsored was brought to Eugene by Kevin Campbell. The internet was used to search and reconnect foster children to lost relatives and others who may have been in their lives when they entered care. DHS, CASA and others were invited to be a part of this training, which was successful in reconnecting youth. We are currently working on 15 cases. Kevin has also offered us the opportunity to participate in a national research project to track kids that have been given this service. This research project, along with the commitment of our local children services, will allow us to jumpstart our program and give us national recognition.
FAMILY BUILDING: It is nationally recognized that 95% of the families that begin the adoption process get discouraged by the lack of support and contact from their local social services department. In this program we match pre-adoptive families with successful adoptive mentor families, who act as a friend and support for these new families. We have Adoption Meet-N-Greet meetings once a month to give the opportunity to gather with other families going through the same process as well as learn from guest speakers/professionals. We also offer a resource for services and subsidy information needed by adoptive families. We have two goals. One is to keep potential adoptive families in the process and the other is to insure that completed adoptions are not disrupted. Our core belief for this program is that you can't ask a family to STEP-UP, if you are not willing to support them.
WHY NOT ME: This program is a general recruitment and awareness campaign for adoptive families. It can be found at festivals, conventions, on billboards and bus sides, with our general adoption message:
Why not me? Why not you? Watch for it around town!
HEART GALLERY LIFE BOOKERS: Each child leaving foster care must have a Life Book which was created for them to preserve their past. Caseworkers are happy to have someone to do this large task for them and scrap bookers are pleased to finds a way to contribute.
HEART GALLERY'S FIRST GIVING TREE: This year we were able to make Christmas a little brighter for many kids in the foster system. "Wish Lists" (from the kids via case workers, mentors and foster families) were written on tags and hung from the Heart Gallery tree in Oakway center. We are happy to report that all 85 kids (age 6 months to 18 years) received gifts - most of them received more than one item from their wish list!
THE FUTURE
All of our existing programs will continue throughout 2008, as they are all so different in order to reach as many walks of life as possible. One of our primary focuses of the upcoming year is the "aging out" group of teens. These are 18 year olds who "age out" of the foster care system and are all of a sudden, on their own, left to finish school, find housing, food, clothing, resources, etc. As a result, many young people who age out of foster care struggle in the face of these new challenges. Too many become homeless, unemployed, suffer from physical or mental problems or go to jail shortly after leaving foster care. Only half of youth will graduate from high school; fewer than 3 percent will graduate from college.
Our focus will be life time committed parents, adoption, teen permanency program that will include Family Finding, 10 and older adoption as well as mentoring.
Along with the mentoring there will be Independent Learning Program to help these teens learn life skills. This program includes teaching youth basic skills such as personal care, driving (permits, insurance, etc.), education (financial aid, college apps), career/employment (resumes), money management, goal planning, available resources and more.
OUR SUCCESS in our first 8 months
The solution to adult problems tomorrow, depends on how our children grow up today! There is no greater insight into the future than recognizing when we save our children we save ourselves.
