PEAR's National Mental Health Provider and Therapist Directories

Parents for Ethical Adoption Reform's next post-adoption initiative will be creating and providing two new directories to the public in the fourth quarter of 2009. One will be a National Mental Health Provider Directory that will include licensed child/family therapists, camps, respite care facilities and therapeutic day and residential schools and programs that are known to work with adoptive families or have knowledge about adoption, institutionalization, and/or prenatal substance use issues.

The second one will be a National Therapist Directory which will include licensed therapists (such as occupational therapists, craniosacral therapists or others) that are known to work with adoptive families or have knowledge about adoption, institutionalization, and/or prenatal substance use issues.

Both will be updated quarterly.

We are inviting the public to suggest providers for which they have had experience. The following links each have 8 open ended questions to add basic contact information.

Mental Health Provider data collection link

Therapist data collection link

Or you can connect through our website at http://www.pear-now.org/

Additionally, our outcomes survey is still open throughout the summer. We have been pleased with the number of responses to date. Results will be available in the Fall of 2009. You can access that at http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB228Q6QUGVM6 or at our website http://www.pear-now.org/

UPDATE: DOS Notice on Nepal June 5, 2009

Adoption Notice

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Bureau of Consular Affairs
Office of Children's Issues
____________ _________ _________ _________ _________ ______

June 05, 2009

On January 1, 2009, the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare (MWCSW) announced procedures for processing adoptions pursuant to the Government of Nepal's (GON) new Terms and Conditions for adoptions. The initial announcement stated that only 10 applications will be processed from each Embassy, Mission, or enlisted Agency in 2009. Requirements have been provided to all approved agencies. According to Nepali officials, the new requirements will apply to all intercountry adoptions. There is NO provision to permit adoptive families who may have already begun an adoption to continue (be "grandfathered" ) under the previous regulations.

On May 17, 2009, MWCSW stated that they will not provide any information on adoption cases in process until a final decision on the matching of a child is made. Information regarding referrals will only be provided to the Diplomatic Mission or the Adoption Agency that forwarded the dossier to the Ministry. For further details about this policy, please consult the MWCSW website. http://www.mowcsw.gov.np/opensection.php?secid=463 (link provided by PEAR)

Although Nepal announced the signing of the Hague Adoption Convention on April 30, 2009, Nepal has not ratified the Convention and it is not in effect at this time. Prospective adoptive parents should be aware that Nepal suspended intercountry adoptions in 2007 because of serious irregularities as well as credible claims of fraud and possible child-buying. It is not clear that the new adoption procedures will provide sufficient safeguards to ensure that intercountry adoption procedures will be transparent and will adequately protect the rights of children, birth parents, and adoptive parents. Although the government has announced that the MWCSW is prepared to begin processing intercountry adoptions, adoptive parents considering an intercountry adoption from Nepal should be aware that the current transition period likely will pose considerable delays and challenges as the Government of Nepal seeks to implement its new policies and regulations. The Embassy continues to seek clarification regarding these procedures and will post additional details as they are available.

source: http://www.adoptions.state.gov/news/nepal.html

UPDATE: Philippines - Moratorium on International Adoption of Children Under age 2.

The following notice was published by the The Inter-Country Adoption Board (ICAB), the Central Authority for the Philippines on April 23, 2009. Currently, there is no information concerning this notice on the US DOS Adoption Webpages - www.adoption.state.gov. PEAR was made aware of a possible moratorium by US prospective adoptive parents currently seeking to adopt from the Philippines. Our research led to the discovery of this announcement. We are currently attempting to confirm receipt of this notice by the US DOS and will provide updates as we receive them. PAPs and ASPs with further information are requested to contact us at: reform@pear-now.org.

April 23, 2009

Dear Partners of ICAB,

Due to the large number of unmatched approved adoption applications of Prospective Adoptive Parents wanting to adopt children within the age range of 0-2 years old with or without medical/developmental concerns coupled with the limited number of chidlren of such category, effective MAY 1, 2009, ICAB has set a moratorium on accepting new applicants wanting to adopt from the above mentioned category.

ICAB shall resume accepting new applications for the aforementioned categories only after it has processed at least 50% of the existing families in our current list. Starting May 1, 2009, only families who would want to adopt a child three (3) years old and above would be considerd by ICAB.

We hope for your cooperation and continued support. Thank you.

Vdery[sic] truly yours,

BERNADETTE B. ABEJO
Executive Director

http://www.icab.gov.ph/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=23&Itemid=2