World Wide Wednesday, March 4, 2015

It’s World Wide Wednesday! Here’s what’s news in the world of foster care and adoption around the web:

• Video: Family Reunites Adopted Daughter With Her Foster Sister.
• Blog post: The Sons Who Were Never Really Mine
  
• Input Sought from Transracial Adoptees: A researcher at the School of Social Work at St. Catherine University/University of St. Thomas is seeking input from transracial adoptees from the U.S. who are 18 years old or older. The survey will explore the value that adoptive parents place on their child’s birth culture and ethnic identity and how it affects the child’s ethnic identity development and sense of belonging and acceptance.
• Former Foster Youth Missing Out on New Health Care Benefits: A little-known clause of the Affordable Care Act that went into effect this January makes young adults who experienced foster care eligible to be insured until their 26th birthday. But according to this Youth Today article, many young people are not aware of the benefit. Read the article in Youth Today and see this tip sheet for child welfare advocates.

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World Wide Wednesday, January 14, 2015

It’s World Wide Wednesday! Here’s what’s news in the world of foster care and adoption around the web:

•  Youth in Foster Care Share Their School Experiences. In 12 fast-paced pages, this report shares the stories of 10 young people who faced constant hurdles and havoc while trying to advance their education in foster care.
• The Post-Adoption Life: Supporting Adoptees, Birth Parents, and Families After Adoption. It’s important to recognize that adoption is a lifelong experience, and acknowledge the challenges for many of those touched by it. In the December 2014 issue of NCFA’s Adoption Advocate, authors Kris Faasse, Sarah Horton Bobo, and Angela Magnuson outline some of the ways that adoption service providers can help adoptees, adoptive family members, and birth family members find and remain connected to vital, long-term support within the broader adoption community.
• You Don’t Have to Adopt to Make a Huge Impact on the Life of a Foster Child. (Read the article.)
• The Tax Realities of Adoption. While the children adopted in 2014 have brought joy to their adoptive families, they have also brought new tax realities for them. Here are some often asked questions about the Adoption Credit on federal income taxes.

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World Wide Wednesday – October 8, 2014

It’s World Wide Wednesday! Here’s what’s happening the world of foster care and adoption around the web:

• Unconditional love from foster parents: Tiffany and Ryan McDonald didn’t plan to take in teenagers when they became foster parents eight years ago. After all, they were only in their mid-20s. But after going through the foster care classes, the first phone call the Ivins couple received was about 12-year-old Rochelle Lane and 13-year-old Rosalee Hafen. Tiffany initially said, “no.” Her own children were significantly younger and she worried the older girls might be a bad influence. However, after thinking about the girls’ background stories and the trials they were facing in foster care, the McDonalds called back and said they would take in Rochelle and Rosalee.  Continue reading
• Transracial Adoption and Foster Care: Many children in foster care are placed at some point — either for foster care or adoption — with a family that is of a different race. The Child Welfare Information Gateway has compiled multiple resources on transracial foster care and adoption that can be helpful to agencies as well as to families. The Gateway Web page on cross-cultural issues in foster care provides resources on issues of race and culture in out-of-home care, including parenting tips to enhance child development. Another Gateway website section contains materials on supporting transracial and transcultural adoptive families, including state and local examples and a collection of articles and publications designed for use by families.
• Factsheet for Caregivers on Supporting Children with Histories of Complex Trauma: The National Child Traumatic Stress Network Complex Trauma Collaborative Group has released a new fact sheet targeted specifically at caregivers. It provides information to help them recognize the signs of complex trauma, offers recommendations for what the caregiver can do to help a child heal, and shares tips for self-care.
• She Thought Her Foster Parents Were Kicking Her Out: For 19-year-old Meredith, life has been anything but easy. Tragedy after tragedy has made her move from home to home, and left her without any family at all. When she was 19, a mentor invited her to live with her family for 6 months to help her get on her feet. As the six month mark approached, a family meeting was called.

  Meredith no doubt expected the worst. Given her past, and the heartache she’d had to endure, who could blame her? But the unexpected news they gave her completely changed her life. Watch the inspirational video.

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World Wide Wednesday – September 24, 2014

It’s World Wide Wednesday! Here’s what’s happening the world of foster care and adoption around the web:

• Kid Hero blog post: 10 Things I Would Go Back to Tell Myself as a new Foster Parent

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  Therapeutic Parenting: A Handbook for Parents of Children who have Disorders of Attachment

• The Long Shadow of Foster Care: When children come home from foster care, parents hope they can leave the trauma of separation behind them. But for many families, separation casts a shadow for years to come. In this issue, parents describe the impact of removal long after reunification, and they ask: Is the child welfare system really doing its best to protect kids when removal itself is so traumatic?

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World Wide Wednesday – September 10, 2014

It’s World Wide Wednesday! Here’s what’s happening the world of foster care and adoption around the web:

• Essay: There’s more than enough love in America to solve the foster care crisis.

• Parenting a Child Who Has Been Sexually Abused: This factsheet discusses how foster and adoptive parents can help children and adolescents who have experienced sexual abuse. It provides basic information about sexual abuse and links to other information so that parents can educate themselves about the topic. The factsheet suggests ways to establish guidelines for safety and privacy in the family, and it offers suggestions about when to seek professional help and where to find such help.
• Kid Hero blog post: Foster Care – It’s a Challenge Worth Taking.
• Intercounty Adoption: Where Do I Start?: This factsheet provides an overview of the intercountry adoption process. Depending on your State, your adoption services provider, and the country from which you adopt, the steps in this adoption process may vary and may change over time. For example, some families will first select an adoption services provider; others will choose a country first. Meeting the legal requirements and then bringing your child home and adjusting to your new family are all covered in this factsheet.

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World Wide Wednesday, August 6, 2014

It’s World Wide Wednesday! Here’s what’s happening the world of foster care and adoption around the web:

• New Website Offers Resources for Families about Trauma: The National Child Traumatic Stress Network has created a new web page focused on the family. The site includes information that defines the impact of trauma from a family systems perspective and connects readers to resources to valuable resources related to trauma.
• Earth to Echo Foster Care & Adoption Movie Review: Tuck, Munch, and Alex are junior-high friends who have big plans for their last night together. Their neighborhood is about to be evacuated for the construction of a bypass. The loss of their neighborhood is significant to each boy, because each of them feels somewhat displaced. Tuck is overshadowed by his older brother and has also moved to Nevada from New York. Munch doesn’t make friends very easily. Alex is a foster kid, who Tuck says “has been moved all over.” All three of them are about to be moved away from their homes, and away from each other. Recently, their cell phones have been acting strange, displaying unusual designs. The boys decode the designs as a map, and decide to spend their last night together trying to discover what is causing the phones to act strange. They follow the map into the desert, and one character admits that they are scared. While exploring, they see a faint light and discover Echo, a scared, tiny alien who just wants to go home. Visit the review to find out how this relates to foster care and adoption.
• They Would Hide Their Purses: Chris Chmielewski, editor of Foster Focus magazine and former youth in care, recently wrote an article for the Huffington Post.

  “It’s as if you get a card. It comes with the garbage bag full of your clothes. It’s the result of being a part of something so abnormal that most people don’t know anything about it. It’s not a physical card or stamp on your forehead but it’s always there.

  It’s always front and center. You’re scary. You’re dangerous. There must be something off about you. After all, you’re a foster kid.” Continue reading They Would Hide Their Purses.

• A Message to Foster Parents Everywhere: “It is said that during World War II that Arthur Hays Sulzberger, the publisher of The New York Times, found it almost impossible to sleep. He was never able to clear his mind of worries until he adopted these five words as his motto, “One step enough for me.” They are taken from an old hymn, “Lead, Kindly Light… Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see. The distant scene; one step enough for me.” “Easy” is not a word I would use for our fostering journey.

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World Wide Wednesday – July 23, 2014

It’s World Wide Wednesday! Here’s what’s happening the world of foster care and adoption around the web:

• Let’s Talk! Respectful Adoption Language and Behavior: This handout developed by the American Academy of Pediatrics lists respectful ways pediatricians can discuss adoption with families, as well as language and phrases to avoid.
• “I Feel Good that I Never Gave Up!“ At National Reunification Month events, parents reflect on the long road home. For June’s National Reunification Month, organizations around the country celebrated the perseverance and resilience of parents reunifying with children from foster care and of the professionals who support them.

• You’ve got an open heart and an open mind, but are you ready to open your home? 5 Ways to Know You’re Ready to be a Foster Parent.

• New fostercare.com website provides answers, support, volunteer options: KidsPeace recently launched a brand-new version of www.fostercare.com, an informative website aimed at supporting foster families and answering questions potential foster parents may have as they start their fostering journey. Log on today to hear from current foster parents, access information and support and find out about upcoming special events and other ways to get involved in your area.

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World Wide Wednesday, July 9, 2014

It’s World Wide Wednesday! Here’s what’s happening the world of foster care and adoption around the web:

• Factsheet Offers Guidance on Helping Teens with Grief: The National Child Traumatic Stress Network offers a factsheet for caregivers to help teens who have experienced traumatic grief. The sheet helps caregivers know how to respond when teens are demonstrating signs of their grief.
• Aging Out: Voices from Those in the Foster Care System – Their stories begin with heartbreak. A family unable or unwilling to care for them. Parents dead, addicted to drugs, absent.

  About 400,000 children in the U.S. live in foster care, according to federal officials. Entry into the foster care system is meant to keep them safe, but the reality is often fraught with its own dangers and disappointments. Times photojournalist Robert Gauthier interviewed more than a dozen young men and women from the Los Angeles area who were on the verge of being emancipated from foster care or had recently aged-out of “the system.”

  Many fight a daily battle to shed the label of “system kid.” Often they are ill-prepared to survive on their own, let alone succeed. They talked to The Times about their past, as well as their dreams for the future. Asked to describe themselves in one word, they answered “survivor,” “driven,” “adaptable.” View Aging Out Video

• The Benefits of Including Foster Children in Your Vacation Plans: Many foster families feel that since foster children are a part of the family they should also be included in family vacation plans too. So, if you are deciding whether or not to include your foster child on your next family vacation, here are some of the pros of taking along your foster child. (Read the article.)

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World Wide Wednesday, May 7, 2014

It’s World Wide Wednesday! Here’s what’s happening the world of foster care and adoption around the web:

• Ten Tips for the First Year of Placement: Parents passionately want to succeed in raising emotionally healthy children. They also want to enjoy their little ones. When their children arrive later in infancy or childhood, most parents are well-aware that they are doing more careful parenting. They are nurturing not only to build a relationship, but to help mitigate any impact of losses or maltreatment.

  What are reasonable things for parents to concentrate on during the first year home? How can parents do the best to enjoy their children? They do not want the pleasures of parenting their children dimmed by a chorus of cautions. On the other hand, they do want to make that first year a great start. Here are my TOP TEN hits for a great start to your relationship with your baby or child.

  1. Spend ample time in nurturing activities. (Continue reading.)

• The Role of Facilitators in Adoption: In the April 2014 issue of NCFA’s Adoption Advocate, authors Karen S. Law, Esq. and Teresa McDonough, ACSW examine the recent rise in the use of unlicensed and typically unregulated adoption intermediaries or facilitators. They explain the significant risks for expectant parents and prospective parents who work with a facilitator as opposed to a licensed agency or attorney, and include a list of recommendations for those considering adoption.
• A Day in the Life of One Foster Family.
• Birthparent Issues of Grief and Loss: In this edition of Adoption Advocate, a publication from the National Council for Adoption (NCFA), the issues of grief and loss of birth parents are explored.  The publication discusses factors that can influence how an individual deals with loss, as well as the importance of considering the choice to parent; provides information on how grief manifests itself, on reconciling loss, and what practitioners and adoptive parents need to know; and offers some recommendations for practitioners to help birthparents.

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World Wide Wednesday, April 16, 2014

It’s World Wide Wednesday! Here’s what’s happening the world of foster care and adoption around the web:

• Why Are Lifebooks So Important?: What is a lifebook? A lifebook brings together a child’s past, present, and future. It is a book to document a child’s history, celebrate accomplishments, and allow his or her talents to shine. It is a record of a child’s life in his or her own words using photos, artwork, and things picked up along the way. It allows a child to honor life, one day and one event at a time. 
  Working together on a lifebook can bring a parent and child closer together. It creates a natural opportunity to talk about the circumstances of the foster care and/or adoptive placement. A lifebook is a useful tool in any stage of foster care or adoption. Other benefits include:
• A lifebook is an easy tool to use to get to know a new child in your home. Working with the child to create pages that reflect his or her life will help you get to know the child better and build a relationship in the process.
• A lifebook can help a child prepare to return to their birth family. You can help a child document and celebrate accomplishments while in care, and keep track of the important people in their life.
• A lifebook can help prepare a child for adoption. You can work with the child to build a bridge between the birth family and the adoptive family.

  Iowa Foster and Adoptive Parents Association (IFAPA) has created over seventy FREE lifebook pages for families to use. IFAPA also has the entire lifebook translated into Spanish. All of these pages are available to download and print for free. VIEW LIFEBOOK PAGES

• Youth Voices for Change: FindYouthInfo.gov created the Youth Engaged 4 Change website for teens and young adults who want to advocate for strengthening programs that improve outcomes for vulnerable youth. The website features voices of youth advocates or “Change Makers”; opportunities for internships, speaking engagements, conferences, and other events offered by the Interagency Working Group on Youth Programs; tools for building knowledge and skills for advocacy on an array of topics, including foster care, education, LGBTQ issues, bullying, and more; and a list of hotlines, publications, and other resources offering support.
• My Family Matters Too: Imagine yourself as a child—taken away from your parents and separated from your siblings and then placed in a new home. This is not only scary, it can be confusing to children that do not understand why they are being taken away from the only homes that they know, regardless as to whether the homes were abusive or neglectful. Imagine yourself having all kinds of questions as to why you are being punished and taken away from your family, but no one answers. In this kind of situation, whom would you turn to for comfort? (Continue Reading)
• The Importance of Relationships for Native American Families: Understanding the culture of my people is critical to bringing about systems change for Native American families. Relationships are an essential part of our traditional values and belief structure, which is where upon so many of our customs continue to be based. Reflecting upon, understanding, and honoring these cultural values when providing permanency-support services is essential to improving permanency outcomes for American Indian children and youth. (Continue Reading)

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