Russia to stop adoptions to U.S. (foster care, orphanage, children)
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sheena12, so glad you are hosting - I hope your little "guests" will prove to be your children.
Other beautiful, typical children with no or very minor special needs also are overlooked by would-be adoptive parents who have their hearts set on adopting a baby - only because such children are part of sibling groups.
At present, Ukrainian children without special needs who are not part of sibling groups are not eligible for international adoption until they are five years old. Ukraine is trying increase domestic adoption, certainly a laudable goal - but one of the results is that thousands of beautiful children languish in the orphanages and institutions, rather than finding families who happen not to be Ukrainian. I wish Ukraine instead would increase tax benefits for domestic adoption or provide other incentives that would get the kids into loving families, domestic or foreign, sooner...
That is true. There are good things about adopting older kids though.
More information. More reliable information.
Six year olds are quite adaptable and are not senior citizens. Nor are 9 year olds or 12 year olds.
If they have a problem you will know it. If they are adverse to adoption you will know that too.
These are good things to know.
I know someone who adopted a child from an Asian country at four moths. She is Autistic and delayed. She does not speak.
I adopted from the same country and my child is not. Same agency and country.
I realize that this referral could have just as easily been mine.
What is happening now, at least in Ukraine, the country that I have worked in the most; is that children over the age of seven are being put into foster homes.
They are little more than indentured servants. They labor and don't go to school. It is sad.
There are children available for adoption and hosting that have nothing wrong with them other than the fact that they are over the age of six.
We are hosting two this summer and two in the winter with a view to adoption. It is nowhere near as expensive as people seem to think.
Maybe children without special needs. Children with special needs are put into mental institutions, typically around the age of four.
There are a few - very few - fairly good "specialized" orphanages for children with special needs in Ukraine. I am aware of one with a very good director, which serves kids who are mostly cognitively typical but who have orthopedic special nees. This director is open to international adoption, with good results in the works atm.
Another orphanage was meant for children with mild intellectual impairment, but it's not so great - at times, children who have mild physical issues such as mild CP or cleft palate, etc. have been sent here, as have children with no special needs of any kind, simply because there was room for them at this place. Yet "graduates" of this orphanage are viewed as inferior just because they lived there...and its reputation for being intended for children with mild mental delays carries over to all who are sent there. Thankfully, this orphanage's director is also pro-adoption, but there is little online info about this place, and few children there (who range from seven to seventeen years old) are ever adopted.
I am so thankful that my young relative WAS found in this place at age nine - so much joy has been brought to my family by this child and their sibling.
Still, this place is a far cry from the bleak, impoverished, understaffed mental institutions to which children with Down syndrome, Apert syndrome (which affects facial features, hands and feet and sometimes hearing but not intellect), cleft palate, missing limbs, cerebral palsy, arthrogryposis, etc. are very commonly sent at age four or so. They remain in such places for the rest of what are generally very short lives. Those who are unable to walk often are kept in cribs 24/7...with no education, no therapies, no real life.
This is true not only in Ukraine but also in many other eastern European countries which were once part of the Soviet Union. People with special needs were viewed as of no use to "the state" during the Soviet era, and this view still prevails to a great extent. Parents of newborns with obvious special needs are advised and urged to give up their babies to the baby house orphanages. Often, the birth of a child with special needs is viewed as God's punishment for the parents, hence many such parents' haste to distance themselves from their child, even though they may experience private heartbreak. There is little special education and therapies are rare. Cut curbs do not exist, doors do not open automatically, apartment elevators are too small to accommodate wheelchairs nor does public transport accommodate wheelchairs...It's like it was here in the US 60 to 75 years ago.
Don't misunderstand me - many, many orphanage workers dearly love the children in their care, are affectionate, and do their best. But there is so much need, and so few in this country and elsewhere in the western world know about the conditions or the thousands of waiting children in these countries. Stories like that of the woman who sent her son back to Russia get the headlines - stories of small children being sent to adult mental institutions do not. I hope the information in this thread will help open some eyes - and hearts.
It is very sad that Russia has stopped adoptions to the US. These children are already in horrible conditions in these orphanges. At 18 if not adopted they are just turned loose on the street where many become begin huffing drugs and get involved in prostitution. Now there will be more and more children that might have been adopted and then are not and become of age. Sad.
brokencrayola, as I noted previously in this thread, Russia is open to international adoption once again in most areas. There was a fairly brief shut-down while investigations took place, but I think you'll find most areas of Russia are up and running now.
I share your concern about teens leaving "the system"...it's a bad situation for typical kids, far worse for those with special needs, who are habitually sent to mental institutions for the remainder of their lives, even if their special needs are what would be considered quite minor in the western world. Very, very tragic indeed, and such a waste of human resources...
Unfortunately because of the horrid conditions in these orphanages and the excessive drinking by many people in Russia, many of these child have FAS (Fetal Alcohol Syndrome) or FAE (Fetal Alcohol Effect) and/or RAD (Reactive Attachment Disorder). As an adoptive mother of a child with RAD (not adopted from Russia) I can tell you it is very very difficult.
Brokencrayola, if you don't mind answering, how old was your child when he/she was adopted? What was your child's background and what are the symptoms? Is it improving with time?
Why in the world spending a lot of time and money to adopt a child from Russia when there's poor pro-American Ukraine full of ethnic Russian kids?
The expenditure in Russian kid's shelters is a few thousand bucks a month per child, not including donations. Plus uni (free) admission in the 1st round, plus free appartment ($100,000) - it's guaranteed only by law and not always in reality, but still.
It's simply evil to adopt a child from Russia. No matter how sad they may be - in some other countries things are a lot worse.
Why in the world spending a lot of time and money to adopt a child from Russia when there's poor pro-American Ukraine full of ethnic Russian kids?
The expenditure in Russian kid's shelters is a few thousand bucks a month per child, not including donations. Plus uni (free) admission in the 1st round, plus free appartment ($100,000) - it's guaranteed only by law and not always in reality, but still.
It's simply evil to adopt a child from Russia. No matter how sad they may be - in some other countries things are a lot worse.
I don't understand what you mean, why is it evil to adopt from Russia?
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