Heart Gallery Roller Derby Benefit

From Christy Gestiehr at The Heart Gallery:

"The Heart Gallery is looking forward to an exciting, fun-filled evening. We hope you can join us. Please forward to your friends and family who might be interested."

Contact Christy Gestiehr with any questions at CGestiehr@childrensboard.org or at 813/204-1759.

Essay About The First Time We Met Our Son

Special to the St. Petersburg Times
In Print: Sunday, October 4, 2009

Sunday Journal: Thinking about adoption, they meet a little boy in foster care

My husband, Steven, stepson Sam and I were already waiting at the park early that summer evening when their car pulled up. I was both nervous and excited about meeting this little boy whose picture I had carried with me for weeks. Six years old at the time, Chandler had been in foster care on and off since he was 2 ½ years old. That picture and the background information the agencies had given us were all we knew of him.

Erin, Chandler's care manager, introduced us to him. He smiled shyly as he quietly said, "Hi." He carried a lunch box with him, and so we all sat down together underneath the picnic pavilion. When we told him we liked his cartoon character lunch box, he explained that his foster mom had packed him dinner since the timing of our visit meant he would miss eating with the other foster kids.

He had also brought some action figures. As he told us about them, he grew more comfortable. From then on he barely paused for breath as he jumped from one subject to the next, beginning nearly every sentence with, "And guess what?"

His speech wasn't very clear so we spent a good amount of time asking him to repeat things that first evening. He was so sweet and innocent, and with his shaggy hair, his long, skinny legs, big brown eyes and ear-to-ear smile I decided he was just about the cutest little boy I'd ever seen. He was a happy bundle of energy and excitement. How in the world could he still be in foster care, I wondered. I couldn't understand why people weren't lined up at the door to be his parents.

Once he finished eating we went out on the playground. We had given him a Nerf football thinking he might like to play that with us, but Chandler was far more interested in being chased up and down and all around the playground equipment.

"You can't get me!" he yelled as he laughed and ran off again, fully expecting that I would continue chasing him. And I did. Up the steps we climbed and down the slide we slid over and over. I was glad I had worn sneakers and shorts — it had been a very long time since I had run around a playground.

After a while, we all walked down to a small bridge overlooking the water. I asked Chandler if he was okay with me lifting him up so he could see the picture in the window of the building at the bridge's entrance. He said yes, but only let me hold him for a brief instant before he asked me to put him back down. We watched from the bridge for a few minutes in hopes of seeing an alligator, and then it was time to go.

As we walked back to the pavilion, the care manager invited us to follow her back to Chandler's foster home so that we could meet his foster mom. During the drive, Steven, Sam and I were all a bit apprehensive; Chandler was the first child we had been matched with and we'd never been to a foster home before.

The home was a large manufactured house at the end of a long asphalt driveway on a large plot of land in rural Hillsborough County. From outside the entrance gate, we could see horses roaming underneath the tall trees in the fenced area alongside the driveway. As we got out of the car, we heard goats in the back yard, and we could see a pool. It looked like a good environment for this energetic young boy.

Chandler and his care manager walked up the steps with us following close behind. As we reached the stoop, the front door flew open and we were suddenly surrounded.

Ranging in age from toddler to a little older than Chandler, all of the children talked at once. "Are you going to be Chandler's mom and dad?" they asked over and over again. Caught off guard, Steven and I didn't know what to say so we simply replied, "Well, we're his friends." It was like looking inside an alternate universe as I realized these kids lived in such a continual state of transition that getting new moms and dads was a normal occurrence to them.

We met the foster mom, and I was immediately grateful to this lady who had kindly opened her home to so many children. Still talking all at once, the children followed as Chandler showed us the bedroom he shared with his foster brothers. He excitedly pointed out his bed and his toys, and then also showed us which beds and toys belonged to the other boys.

It was a short visit. As we prepared to leave, all of the children wanted to hug us and we obliged. We told Chandler how much we enjoyed meeting him and one of the older girls excitedly said to him, "I know they're going to be your mom and dad."

I knew we were going to be, too.

Michelle Schumacher is a marketing freelancer and foster adoption advocate who blogs about foster adoption at fosteradoptions.blogspot.com.

Recap of the 2009 Annual NACAC Conference

The 2009 NACAC (North American Council on Adoptable Children) http://www.nacac.org/ Annual Conference took place in Columbus, OH, Aug. 12 - 16. Hundreds of attendees from all over the United States as well as Canada took part in educational symposiums, networking events, and meetings centered around advocating for post adoptive support services in their own communities.

Supported by sponsors including Jockey Being Family http://www.jockeybeingfamily.com/ (who provided scholarships to the conference for 30 first time attendees, including myself) and the Dave Thomas Foundation http://www.davethomasfoundation.org/, the conference provided the opportunity to garner practical and straightforward information from highly respected experts in the field of adoption.

One of the most integral components of the conference was the validation experienced from being among a group of people who truly understand what life as an adoptive family is really like. Solution-oriented in all respects, the conference's overall tone was both realistic and optimistic at the same time. Personal stories of the joys and rewards, as well as the just as important trials and tribulations, common among adoptive families were shared by speakers and attendees alike. Tough topics were handled proactively and directly; no topic was shyed away from, and attendees were able to reach out to speakers, agencies, and other adoptive parents for solution-oriented insight, advice, and solutions in addressing their own specific challenges.

Consisting of a very small full-time staff, NACAC is nonetheless accomplishing great things in its energetic efforts to advance the causes pertinent to adoptive families. More information about NACAC as well as the 36th Annual NACAC Conference, taking place in Hartford, Conneticut, August 4 –7, 2010 can be found at http://www.nacac.org/.

Letter to the Editor of the St. Petersburg Times

The following is a Letter to the Editor I wrote that was printed in the St. Petersburg Times on Monday, July 27, 2009. It was in response to a Times Editorial, "Adoption progress, problems" which was printed on Wednesday, July 22, 2009 http://bit.ly/IxwmT.

Subject: Much Work Still to be Done

As a foster adoptive parent and advocate, please accept my gratitude for pointing out that the increase in the number of foster adoptions in Florida, while commendable, does not eliminate the work that is still to be done. Over and over research commissioned locally, at the state level, nationally, and beyond indicates the fundamental need for post adoption support services. However, both DCF and Hillsborough Kids, Inc. continue to allot a miniscule portion of their budgets to providing such services. Further, the supports that do exist are hard to access and generally for limited periods of time only, but anyone who has adopted a former foster child can tell you that the effects of the trauma these children have experienced are likely to resurface throughout their childhood, teen years, and beyond. Learning to work through or manage the often extreme behaviors they understandably exhibit as a result of their past experiences requires far more than love; it requires commitment, perseverance, and dedication on the part of the parents to become knowledgeable of the psychological, neurological, and other “whys” behind their children’s behavior, as well as students of the specific methods that are effective in parenting this population. As your editorial points out, families who adopt foster children are providing an invaluable service to the state. One has to ask why, then, does the state not in turn commit to supporting them with the resources they need in order to be successful?

Regarding ours being the only state in the country to have an outright ban on gay and lesbian adoption I say shame on us, Florida. For the sake of fulfilling our shared responsibility to provide every child with a safe, secure, supportive, and loving home, it is time to insist that political and personal biases be set aside so that all qualified residents, regardless of their sexuality, may finally be extended equal rights to adopt in the state of Florida.

New skirt! Tampa Bay Article Features Our Foster Adoption Success Story

Please double click on this link Michelle Schumacher Success Storyteller to view the full article.

New Social Network AdoptionVoices.com a Promising Resource for All Who Are Touched by Adoption

A new online social network devoted to all aspects of adoption was recently launched. A July 10th message from the site's founders to its members read:

A message to all members of Adoption Voices

In the last few weeks since we launched AdoptionVoices.com, we've already had more than 1,500 members register. Even more important, we've had great content created along with great member interaction. For example, we now have 98 sub-groups created on adoption topics.

The groups with the most members so far are:
(1) Transracial Adoption
(2) Hoping to Adopt
(3) China Adoption
(4) Families Supporting Adoption
(5) LDSFS Adoptions
(6) International Adoption
(7) Bloggers
(8) Openness in Adoption
(9) Adoption Humor and Inspiration
(10) Adoption Advocates
(11) Foster Adoption
(12) Why Open?
(13) Open Adoption
(14) Finding and Adoption
(15) Christian Adoption

The most active groups as of today are:
(1) LDSFS Adoptions
(2) Hoping to Adopt
(3) Why Open?
(4) China Adoption
(5) Bloggers
(6) International Adoption
(7) Transracial Adoption
(8) Families Supporting Adoption
(9) Kid Free Zone
(10) Adoptive Parents for Open Records
(11) How to Avoid Being Scammed
(12) Foster Adoption
(13) California Adoptive Families
(14) Special Needs Adoption
(15) Birthparents (Who Have a Positive Story to Tell)

We encourage you to join or create a group today and share your adoption voice at http://adoptionvoices.com/groups.

Visit Adoption Voices at: http://adoptionvoices.com/

Excerpts from UK Article About Increase in Number of Adopted Children Returned to Care

Research from the UK validating the need for and importance of post adoptive support services...
From http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article6675966.ece

July 10, 2009
Number of adopted children returned to care has doubled in five years


The number of adopted children who have been returned to care homes because their new parents cannot cope with them has doubled in the past five years.

Data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that the number has increased by a third in the past year alone as parents struggle with often challenging children who have suffered years of neglect or abuse in their natural families.

Going back into care after living with an adoptive family is a traumatic experience for children, and for the adoptive parents who have to accept their only chance of having a family has gone. It is also a huge cost to an already over-stretched system with the children likely to need expensive specialist care.

The increase in breakdowns comes despite a fall in the number of children being adopted. Only 4,637 children were adopted in 2007, the lowest number since 1999.

The data on breakdowns is in a survey of local authorities, conducted by More4 News and shared with The Times. More4 News will broadcast its special report tonight at 8pm.

Experts say the figures show that many children are being left to suffer at the hands of dysfunctional natural parents for too long before being taken into care by social workers. By the time they are adopted, many have severe emotional or behavioural problems.

Local authorities are not obliged to keep any data on adoption breakdowns and the vast majority of those contacted by More4 News had no figures or only partial records. However, according to the numbers kept by 92 out of 450 local authorities in England, Scotland and Wales, 57 children were returned to care in 2008-09 compared with 26 in 2004-05. If the pattern is repeated across the country, it means more than 250 children were returned to the care system last year.
The figures are also a reflection of the changing face of adoption. Before the 1970s, most adopted children were babies born to single mothers, but today more than three quarters have been removed from their homes because of abuse or neglect. The increase in alcohol and drug abuse among parents is also a growing factor in care proceedings, with parents often being given several chances to break their habit before children are removed.

According to data provided to More4 News by the local authorities, last year only four per cent of adopted children were babies, with the majority aged between one and four. A quarter were aged between five and nine.

Adoption UK, the charity which supports adoptive families, said not enough was being done to help parents to care for a challenging child.

Jonathan Pearce, of Adoption UK, said: “The figures starkly illustrate the difficulties and complexity of modern-day adoptions from care and also highlight the lack of support for adoptive families in their challenging task of being therapeutic parents for traumatised children.”
The charity says the system is still too preoccupied with the intense and lengthy approvals process for would-be adoptive parents, rather than preparing them in advance and helping them afterwards.

Case study ‘I had naively believed in love’

Initially, the adoption seemed to be going well. But Kate discovered that Alex, whom she had adopted when the child was four, had an attachment disorder and heard voices.
“She never left my side, ever,” Kate says. “She couldn’t watch television, she couldn’t play, she didn’t want to play with other children. There was nothing that she could do by herself.”

Alex’s behaviour deteriorated rapidly and she began to torture the family cat. She tried to kill her rabbit. Social services had warned Kate that her daughter’s background was “as bad as it gets”. Alex’s natural mother was an alcoholic and a drug addict.

“I naively believed that with enough love and enough attention and security we could make it all better for her,” Kate says. “But it became a nightmare caring for a child who isn’t attached to you.”

(All names have been changed))