Post Adoption Depression (PAD)

Many prospective adoptive parents and adoptive parents are not familiar with Post Adoption Depression (PAD). The following blog gives a checklist of symptoms and some predictors of developing PAD.

Additionally, there is a standing invitation to share your story about experiencing PAD. Please consider sharing your story to help others.
http://dontcallmemother.wordpress.com/standing-invitation/









Ethics, Transparency, Support
~ What All Adoptions Deserve.
http://www.pear-now.org/

DOS Notice: Vietnam

Vietnam Adoption Notice
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Bureau of Consular Affairs
Office of Children’s Issues
_______________________________________________

October 2009

Nearly all cases for which an official referral was issued before September 1, 2008, have now been processed to completion. The U.S. Embassy in Hanoi and Vietnamese officials are assisting families whose cases are still pending. Questions about these cases may be sent to hanoiadoptions@state.gov.

At this time, adoption service providers and prospective adoptive parents should not seek or accept new (or potential) adoption referrals from Vietnam. We will inform adoption service providers and prospective adoptive parents if/when we believe referrals from Vietnam can resume.

As a positive development, the Government of Vietnam recently circulated an initial draft of a proposed new adoption law. As drafted, the proposed legislation attempts to codify and coordinate domestic and intercountry adoption requirements and procedures. The draft itself represents a significant effort and could be a step towards Vietnam’s stated goal of becoming a Party to the Hague Adoption Convention. At this point, however, it is unclear whether the legislation would achieve this goal and when (or if) the Vietnamese legislature will formally consider it. If the legislation passes, it will take time to establish effective new procedures and regulations.

International and Vietnamese media sources have also reported that the Vietnamese Government concluded its investigation in one of several cases of adoption officials allegedly falsifying paperwork for the intercountry adoption of Vietnamese children. Reports indicate that all 16 officials from one province were found guilty of the abuse of power in their public services positions and were individually sentenced. The United States welcomes the more active role of Vietnamese officials in the monitoring of the local adoption process.
The United States remains in frequent contact with the government of Vietnam on adoption matters. Discussions have focused on the broad range of child welfare responsibilities encompassed by the Hague Adoption Convention, the principles underlying the Convention, and the practical requirements for implementing procedures that the Convention requires. Representatives from both countries agree that intercountry adoptions from Vietnam to the United States cannot resume until fundamental reforms are in place to ensure a transparent child welfare system that has the best interests of the children as its first priority, and that protects the fundamental rights of all parties.

The Governments of the United States and Vietnam are seriously concerned about the inconsistencies and deficiencies that led to a decision not to renew our previous bilateral agreement. Vietnamese criminal investigations and U.S. field reviews revealed evidence of child buying, including forged or altered documents, cash payment to birth mothers (for other than reasonable payments for necessary activities), coercion or deceit to induce birth parent(s) to release children to an orphanage, and children being offered for intercountry adoption without the knowledge or consent of their birth parents. Any effort to predict when the current situation will be replaced with a reliable, transparent intercountry adoption procedure is purely speculative.

In response to U.S. Government inquiries, the Government of Vietnam has reaffirmed that second referrals will be permitted only when the child originally referred for adoption has died. In light of ongoing police investigations and the Vietnamese Government’s current focus on revising its adoption laws and procedures, the U.S. Government accepts this decision on second referrals as final.

http://adoption.state.gov/news/vietnam.html

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Ethics, Transparency, Support
~ What All Adoptions Deserve.
http://www.pear-now.org/

Video in Support of Adoptee Access

Adoptee access to records is only available in a few states. Please support transparency in adoption by supporting this project.



Amy Burt, an adoptee, will be making a video that features adoptive parents in support of adoptee access to their records. The video will not be state-specific. She is looking for 100 adoptive parents to participate. She will be creating a separate video that features birthparents supporting adoptee access to their records. The message on both videos will be the same.

She intends to get this out before Thanksgiving. She would like a picture of you as well to put on her video. All photos on the video will be marked confidential.

If you or anyone you know is interested, please contact Amy at amyburt40@yahoo.com. Please write in the title of your email : Adoptive Parent for adoptee access support or Birthparent for adoptee access support.









Ethics, Transparency, Support
~ What All Adoptions Deserve.
http://www.pear-now.org/

RESOURCE: Parenting Discussion

PEAR board members have recently been contacted by adoptive families concerned with reports of trafficking in Ethiopia, Guatemala, Vietnam and China. While we attempt to assist families with uncovering the truth behind their adoptions, we also wish to offer them support and resources in dealing with these truths. One resource we would like to recommend to adoptive families is the Adoption Parenting Yahoo Group sponsored by EMK Press. During the next two weeks, Adoption Parenting will be tackling the topic: Family, Friends and Belonging. As part of this discussion, adoptive families will be encouraged to discuss parenting after the discovery (or suspicion) of a corrupted adoption - how to help your child, your family, and your child's family of origin. Below is a description of the topic and a link to join in.

Reprinted with permission of Sheena Macrae, EMK Press, Moderator Adoption Parenting Yahoo Group:
Topic T#161: FAMILY, FRIENDS AND BELONGING

Introduction

There's nothing in private international law that entitles one to become an adoptive parent, but the Hague Convention states that it is a child's right to grow up in family - and when an adoptive home can't be found in country, international adoption can be considered in order to give a child a place in an adoptive family. And of course, finding a family and permanence for a child underscores domestic adoption.

With so much evidence recently of illegalities in international adoption - Guatemala, Egypt, Vietnam and much speculation about trafficking in China, and domestic concerns that children often wait over-long for adoption, our new Topic looks at what constitutes making a family and belonging. What is the gift that an adoptive family gives a child beyond safety? What from us, via our parenting, will we instill in our adopted children, and what will be determined by genetics?

Our Topic therefore has two major thrusts:

~First the gift we give in opening our family to our adopted child. what is the family ethos that supports us, and how can that support all the children in our family, adopted and non-adopted? How do we open our whole family to out adopted children, and what happens if extended family aren't in fact so very welcoming?

~Second, trafficking, and dealing with our children's other families plus consideration of cases in domestic adoption where kids had to wait overlong to be freed for adoption. How do we help our children understand how they came to be adopted, and how do we explain that their families may be grieving for them? This is often the case, no matter how poor the parenting was. How do we talk appropriately about birth family? More, how do we deal with birthfamily should a search be undertaken and the family found? In opened adoptions (however they are opened), how can we help birth and adoptive families get along? How do we learn to be 'mutual family' with them? In intercountry adoptions, what if the family was coerced into losing the child and very much want the child back?

Join in on our discussion of what we give to our children to help them fit OUR families and social circles, and how we also allow our children to 'belong' to their first families.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/adoptionparenting/

Ethics, Transparency, Support
~ What All Adoptions Deserve.
http://www.pear-now.org/

UPDATE to DOS Adoption Alert Guatemala

On October 15, 2009, the DOS published the following Addendum/Update to their Adoption Alert on Guatemala:

Notice for Guatemala “Other Pending” Adoption Cases

The following are brief updates on issues or related developments on pending non-hogar adoption cases.

*The Embassy continues to approve an average of 4-6 visa applications of completed adoption cases per week. Consular officers and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) office in Guatemala City have been in regular contact with Guatemalan officials about the current situation and to look for approaches that could reduce unnecessary requirements, coordinate the flow of information to adoptive families, and permit all adoptions to move forward. In some instances, the Ambassador has been directly involved in discussions with Guatemalan officials on the adoption situation in Guatemala.
*In a recent meeting with the new head of the Procuradoría General de la Nación (PGN), the Consul General was informed that the PGN will establish a new unit to work exclusively on adoptions and to make sure that decisions are reached quickly. This new unit began working September 21.
*Consular and USCIS officers report that investigations continue, both on individual adoption cases and on the hogars.
*In light of allegations regarding the integrity of Guatemala’s former adoption process, Government authorities are making a concerted effort to confirm all aspects of every case. Because of the large number of investigations, progress overall is likely to be limited.
*The Embassy’s USCIS Field Office currently has 597* active cases, of which:
437 are pre-approved and pending action by the Government of Guatemala
160 are pending pre-approval by USCIS
45 are pending submission of 1st DNA results
15 are pending USCIS or other petitioner action
*Note: This total may include cases in which the petitioner has subsequently decided to abandon the case but did not inform USCIS.
* USCIS Field Office Guatemala City received final Guatemalan adoption documents for 10 cases during the period from August 1 to September 1, 2009.
* USCIS Field Office Guatemala City also reminds prospective adoptive parents of the new DNA procedures for the 1st DNA test required in relinquishment cases. All 1st DNA appointments must be scheduled by USCIS. For more information or to schedule an appointment for DNA collection, please contact USCIS at: Guatemala.Adoptions@dhs.gov
* The Department of State received a letter signed by 52 Members of Congress regarding transition adoption cases that are still pending Guatemala. The Department does not generally release the contents of congressional correspondence. We will be responding to that letter and reviewing it once again to see if there are any new or additional actions that could be taken to encourage a resolution of the remaining transition cases.

In The News

The following are summaries of Guatemalan newspaper articles (often in Spanish) that relate to adoption issues. By citing these articles we are not endorsing the content or information; we only wish to provide a sampling of information currently being published.

On September 1, an Oaxaca, Mexico, newspaper reported that police officers in southern Mexico arrested two people who confessed to attempting to smuggle a baby into the United States to sell. According to the report, the child, born in Guatemala on June 20, had been taken from a nurse who charged $1,000.

On September 2, two of Guatemala’s leading newspapers reported on the letter from 52 Members of Congress to Secretary of State Clinton. According to the articles, the letter highlighted that Guatemalan adoptions begun in good faith by constituents of these Members had now been delayed as much as 18 months. According to the news stories, the letter requested that an effort be made to reach agreement on a standardized process to resolve these cases; it also requested that officials in the Department of State keep adoptive families informed of the efforts they are making.

September 8, 10. The Guatemalan daily newspaper Prensa Libre carried two articles covering the International Conference on Adoptions being held September 7 and 8 in Antigua, Guatemala. According to the article, experts at the conference believe Guatemala’s recent law on adoptions and its accession to the Hague Convention on adoptions puts in place a transparent and responsible process for adoptions. In the opinion of speakers at the conference, “There has been a clear evolution” and Guatemala has succeeded in removing itself from the list of countries that “improperly” export children.

The website http://threedaysforthreedaughters.typepad.com/ deals with an international appeal for a hunger strike (September 1-3) requesting that the adoptions of three Guatemalan children be voided and that the children, now living in the United States, be returned to their Guatemalan families from whom they were allegedly taken.

Until there is greater clarity on the adoption process in Guatemala, the Office of Children’s Issues will be providing monthly updates.

http://adoption.state.gov/news/guatemala.html

Ethics, Transparency, Support
~ What All Adoptions Deserve.
http://www.pear-now.org/