tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5005470146953673773.post585985883564599159..comments2023-03-21T05:16:29.904-04:00Comments on Parents for Ethical Adoption Reform (PEAR): PEAR Ethics Alert - China Special Needs ProgramsPEARhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01768583173126899015noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5005470146953673773.post-2705974306968221312012-03-19T18:55:45.785-04:002012-03-19T18:55:45.785-04:00A few comments from a parent who advocates for wai...A few comments from a parent who advocates for waiting children from China. Regarding this statement "Apparently, agencies are counseling clients to join list-serves such as Waiting Child Advocates on Yahoo, who list individual agency’s special needs children. The clients of agency A will join the list, find a child on Agency B’s list and request further info from agency B, then take this info back to Agency A who will submit an Letter of Intent (LOI)." Might it not occur to the authors that perhaps agencies see the value of clients connecting with a well-informed advocacy group to help them prepare for special needs adoption with the wisdom and "been there done that" experience of parents who have adopted special needs children? An online course in a vacuum cannot replace the insight of those who are successfully parenting children with various special needs. Why do we always suspect a profit motive? Maybe there is a value to connecting with seasoned adoptive parents - who volunteer countless hours to help more children be considered for adoption - children who might be overlooked because of a label. I am also impressed with the level of dignity and respect given to children and families on these yahoo group grassroots efforts of adoptive parents. In addition there are numerous resources continually being shared from local specialists for various special needs to links to special needs support groups. Pseudonymes are used for the children to help protect their privacy. Many children are finding families as a PAP learns more about parenting a child w/ a certain need and requests a file from their agency to review. As for case stealing - agencies have designated children's files for 3 months. It's up to the CCCWA if a child is hard to place or aging out to warrant moving a child's file from an agency to another. Obviously - waiting longer in an orphanage or aging out of a chance for adoption isn't in the child's best interest. I'd love for the breaking story to be : Parents Who Have Adopted Special Needs Children Give Back Countless Volunteer Hours to Help Other Waiting Children Find Families Ready and Prepared to Welcome Them! " Do you publish such good news stories? As for regulating the passion that an adoptive parent has to help other children find forever families - I think parents have a right to contribute to the common good. The article refers to these parents as "unregulated" advocates - good grief. These unregulated advocates are parents wanting to give a peek into their world of what they have discovered regarding parenting special needs children. Special needs adoption isn't easy - but so worth the hard-work and effort. What drives the yahoo list-serve groups is the belief that every child deserves a loving family. Privacy needs to be maintained - but keeping a child hidden to the point that no one can consider him or her serves no purpose either. Children having families serves the common good, and the common good is something we should all be able to contribute to freely.TwinCitiesGalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16247611793724648403noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5005470146953673773.post-71415658843615481592012-03-18T20:30:43.528-04:002012-03-18T20:30:43.528-04:00PEAR is right to be concerned with the Special Foc...PEAR is right to be concerned with the Special Focus and Special Needs program in China. With the decline in "healthy" foundlings following the Hunan scandal of 2005, many orphanages shifted their attention to older children ("the "Aging Out"kids one sees advocated for) and other special needs children, realizing that adoptive families would tire of the wait. On one of our blogs we detail one such "Special Focus" program promoted by WACAP, which was largely comprised of children obtained from birth families under the impression that they were simply going to the orphanage for schooling. Later, they were informed that the child was in fact being internationally adopted. Adoptive families were falsely told that the children had been relinquished due to poverty or death, when in fact many of the birth families were neither. It is a terrible situation for all involved, as birth families and their children are intending to have reunions and adoptive families are being broadsided by revelations that they in no way anticipated.Research-China.Orghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09137919637778021754noreply@blogger.com