posted Feb 23, 2012 5:36 PM by Canadian Coalition of Adoptive Families
By Kerry Benjoe, Leader-PostFebruary 1, 2012
The
Adoption Support Centre of Saskatchewan is once again seeking equality
for adoptive parents when it comes to parental benefits.Photograph by: Orlando Sierra, Getty ImagesThe
Adoption Support Centre of Saskatchewan is once again seeking equality
for adoptive parents when it comes to parental benefits. "What
we're saying is that regardless of the way your family is formed,
whether it's through birth, foster care or whether it's through
adoption, all parents should have equal paid leave during the time they
take off after they bring a child into their home through whatever
method," ASCS executive director Cindy Xavier said. The group is lobbying Otawa to develop an employment insurance benefits program for adoptive parents. "Since
1988, adoptive parents have been asking for equality in the EI system,"
Xavier said. "While they currently receive EI benefits that come along
with parental leave - so they do get 35 weeks of paid leave - they are
entitled to take the additional 15 weeks, which makes 50 weeks leave.
They don't get additional pay for that." She said there have been a couple of cases that went to the Supreme Court of Canada. "Adoptive
parents were asking for access to the maternity benefits," Xavier said.
"They were turned down because, legislatively, they didn't qualify
because they are not recovering from birth and that's what the maternity
benefits are intended for." In 2008, the federal government was
lobbied to create an additional EI benefit program specifically for
adoptive parents. It would be the equivalent to paid maternity benefits. She
said discussions took place in 2010 and the group received support from
adoption professionals and from the federal parliamentary committee
dealing with the issue. "We're not the only ones. Our counterparts
in other provinces are working on their own provincial governments to
gain support and rally support on what it is we're trying to achieve,"
she said. © Copyright (c) The StarPhoenix
|
posted Jan 18, 2012 6:33 PM by Canadian Coalition of Adoptive Families
Tonda MacCharles
Ottawa Bureau
The Toronto Star
January 17, 2010
A Commons committee’s work on
adoption has been taken up anew by a reconstituted committee. Just weeks
away from tabling its report, the committee is considering
recommendations to:
• Provide tax
support for post-adoption training and counselling for adoptive parents
and children — some of whom grapple with difficult effects of parental
neglect or substance abuse, fetal alcohol syndrome, or abandonment.
• Provide a
15-week federal leave benefit to adoptive parents struggling to form
healthy emotional attachments to their newly adopted children. All new
parents, adoptive and biological, are eligible for 35 weeks of parental
leave. Many witnesses argued the emotional transitions for adoptive
families deserve the same support as the physical post-partum transition
for birth mothers, which is recognized by a 15-week maternity leave — a
benefit adoptive parents are ineligible for. Only Quebec extends
additional leave to adoptive parents.
• Ease
immigration hurdles to allow Canada’s adopted children to pass on
Canadian citizenship to their future children who are born abroad. The
law now disallows that. It means the grandchildren of adoptive parents
today could find themselves stateless.
• Help
establish a memorandum of understanding between provinces to ease
inter-provincial adoption. The committee heard it is easier to adopt
internationally than it is to adopt inter-provincially in Canada.
• Collect
national data on adopted children and children in foster care,
guardianship, or kinship care. There is no national data collection in
Canada unlike the U.S., which gathers valuable statistics to inform
policy-making. The Adoption Council of Canada, an advocacy group,
estimates there are between 70,000 and 100,000 children in care. It says
statistics suggest between 30,000 and 40,000 are legally available for
adoption. Statistics from the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid
Societies suggest about 9,400 children and youths up to age 18 are
legally available for adoption in this province. They languish longer in
care than in the U.S. and nobody knows why.
• Fund a
national awareness campaign to promote adoption as a way to build
families, to highlight the benefits for children, and the number of
children in need of permanent families.
• Fund a
Canada’s Waiting Children program that would be the sole national
photo-listing service that connects waiting kids to waiting parents. |
posted Jan 2, 2012 7:15 PM by Canadian Coalition of Adoptive Families
http://www.soschildrensvillages.ca/news/news/orphan-charity-news/pages/increased-international-adoption-calls-for-the-use-of-%E2%80%9Csearchers%E2%80%9D-track-child-histories-139.aspx
| 26/12/2011
- The increased use of searchers to track adopted children’s histories
comes on the heels of increased fraud and corruption in international
adoptions. | Amidst
widespread stories of coercion placed on women to give up their babies
for adoptions, and even payments and abductions at the hands of brokers
procuring adoptees for unwitting parents, more are looking to hire
what's known as an adoption searcher. Adoption searchers are
specialized independent researchers working to track down the birth
families of children adopted from other counties. In Ethiopia
alone the number of children adopted into foreign families in the U.S.,
Canada, and Europe has risen from just a few hundred several years ago
to several thousand last year. That increase has also brought stories of corruption, child trafficking,
and fraud. Parents began to publicize the stories their adopted
children told them when they learned English: that they had parents and
families at home, who sometimes thought they were going to the U.S. to
receive an education and then return. Investigations have found
evidence that adoption agencies had recruited children from intact
families. Ethiopia's government found that some children's paperwork had
been doctored to list children who had living parents as orphans instead, which allowed the agencies to avoid lengthy court vetting procedures. The
evidence seems to point to cases of fraud or corruption occurring at
the local level, long before the adoption proceeded to the country's
federal courts and oversight agencies. In some cases other family
relatives relinquish a child while their parents or caretakers are
absent; sometimes all it takes are several witnessed claiming that the
parents had died. Tasked with determining whether an adopted child
is a "manufactured orphan," the contradictions unearthed by searchers
in recent years have damaged the reputations of adoption agencies in
Ethiopia. The main issue facing countries like Ethiopia is extreme poverty. When
people see birth families benefitting from their choice to relinquish
their child, she said, that can have a contagious effect in these
communities. "It takes over a whole village very quickly. It's very
dangerous stuff, playing with people's poverty, emotions, and needs in a
way that's really quite profound." |
posted Sep 6, 2011 7:42 AM by Canadian Coalition of Adoptive Families
September 1, 2011
McGuinty Government Makes It Easier For Parents To Build Families Through Adoption
Thousands more Ontario children and youth are now eligible for adoption and other supports thanks to changes now in effect.
The Building Families and Supporting Youth To Be Successful Act, 2011
removes barriers so more kids in the care of children's aid societies
(CASs) can be adopted. To help with the transition to adulthood, older
youth whose care ended at ages 16 or 17 are now able to return to their
CAS and receive financial and other supports until the age of 21.
To help more kids find permanent homes, Ontario will also provide
subsidies to eligible families who want to adopt or gain legal custody
of a Crown ward. These subsidies will be available through CASs for
siblings and children 10 years and older. The new funding is in addition
to existing subsidies that most CASs already provide to some adoptive
families.
These changes are an important step in the government's efforts to
strengthen Ontario's adoption system and help more children and youth
reach their potential and succeed.
QUOTES
"There is nothing more important in the life of a child than
knowing he or she will always have a place to call home. With the new
legislation and new subsidies, thousands more kids will have the
opportunity to find their forever family."
– Laurel Broten
Minister of Children and Youth Services
"The Expert Panel is pleased with the McGuinty government's
introduction of targeted supports for adoptive families. Older children
and siblings represent important groups to target and these funds could
be the difference between a child being adopted into a loving home and
remaining in foster care. With this money and the proclamation of Bill
179, Minister Broten has moved forward with significant reform of our
public adoption system."
– Will Falk
Co-Chair, Expert Panel on Infertility and Adoption, Adoption Work Group
QUICK FACTS
- Previously, 75 per cent of the 9,000 kids in CAS care had access
orders that prevented them from being adopted. As of Sept. 1, these
kids are now eligible for adoption.
- Ontario is more than doubling the number of Adoption Resource Exchanges - forums that match adoptive families with children needing adoption - across Ontario.
- In the last two years, Ontario increased adoptions by 21 per cent over 2008-09.
- Research shows that children and youth in permanent homes are
more likely to graduate from high school, hold a job and contribute to
their communities.
CONTACTS
|
posted Aug 3, 2011 1:07 PM by Canadian Coalition of Adoptive Families
By
Oliver Renick
-
Wed Jul 06 23:04:51 GMT 2011
Adopted children are three times more
likely to develop physical and mental health disabilities than
kids raised by their biological parents, U.S. researchers found.
Nearly 45 percent of kids ages 12 to 17 who were adopted
from foster care homes developed moderate to severe health
problems, compared with 14 percent of all youth in the age
group, according a report released today by the Federal
Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. The most
common conditions were learning disabilities such as attention
deficit hyperactivity disorder.
The U.S. spends an annual $8 billion on foster care and
adoption assistance, the program that helps states care for
homeless children, according to a 2006 report by the U.S.
Government Accountability Office. Neglect and abuse is the most
common reason for entry into a foster home, according to Laura
Radel, one of the study’s researchers. Almost three percent of
children are adopted, or 1.8 million kids.
“This is the first time we have national representative
data in this level of detail on adopted children,” said Radel,
a senior social analyst at the Department of Health and Human
Services. “It confirmed what we know that children who are
adopted will frequently have health and developmental issues.”
The annual number of adoptions has doubled to 50,000 a year
since the 1997 Adoption and Safe Families act, a law providing
adoption incentive payments and expanded health coverage, Radel
said.
Psychological Conditions
Attention deficit disorder affected 20 percent of foster
care adoptees, and 16 percent suffered from behavior and conduct
problems. Only four percent of all children, adopted and those
living with biological parents, suffered from attention deficit
disorder, according to the report. Seven percent of children
adopted from foster homes had bone and muscle problems, while
one percent of all children suffered the same conditions.
“The fact that these kids may have serious problems, to a
greater extent than kids born into a family, is something that
we need to pay attention to,” said Edward Sondik, director of
the National Center for Health Statistics. “By no means should
that be a barrier for adoption. With the new data, we hope to
get feedback from researchers and lawmakers that can help
ameliorate this problem.”
The annual report was prepared by 22 U.S. agencies that
collect and analyze data related to children and families. The
study uses the most recently available federal statistics to
measure child well-being in a variety of areas such as health
care, education, safety and behavior.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Oliver Renick in New York at
orenick@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Reg Gale at
rgale5@bloomberg.net.
|
posted Aug 3, 2011 1:02 PM by Canadian Coalition of Adoptive Families
August 1, 2011
http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/newsfeatures/article/1033076--how-one-town-is-changing-adoption
Laurie Monsebraaten
SOCIAL JUSTICE REPORTER
ST. THOMAS, ONT.—When the social worker told Jack VanNoord that she was taking away his 5 1/2-month-old foster child to be adopted by another family, the father of five had just one question for Children’s Aid:
“Are you running an adoption agency or are you acting in the best interests of the child?”
It didn’t seem right to VanNoord and his wife Coby to be uprooting the baby boy, whose inquisitive blue eyes and gummy smile had stolen their hearts in three short months with the family.
But in the fall of 1986 in the rural community of St. Thomas, south of London, it was rare for foster families to adopt, especially if they already had five children. Childless couples or those with just one child were the priority. And you had to be on the adoption waiting list.
“That all seemed rather silly to me,” recalls VanNoord. “What about the child? This would be the second separation. How many times can a child go through that?”
He immediately set to work researching the then-emerging theory of attachment between babies and caregivers. He hired a lawyer, sought the opinion of a noted London child psychologist and began his fight for the right to adopt baby Kris.
Today the VanNoords’ “courageous stand” is credited for sparking Ontario’s first foster-to-adopt program, where the goal is to ensure every child who comes into care is moved only once. If the child can’t go back home, the foster parents automatically become the adoptive family.
In Ontario, where up to 10,000 Crown wards languish in foster care and up to 80 per cent are forced to make the critical transition into adulthood without a forever family, some say the St. Thomas and Elgin County model is worth adopting province-wide.
“Yes we’re small,” acknowledges Dawn Flegel, director of services since 2004 for Family and Children’s Services of St. Thomas and Elgin County, which serves as the Children’s Aid Society for the community of about 70,000.
“But we believe kids in Oshawa or Mississauga deserve the same continuity of care as our kids in Elgin.”
Jim Hummel, head of adoption and foster family recruitment from 1980 to 2001, says the VanNoords “presented a very cogent argument that made you sit back and reflect on what you were doing.”
Soon after the case, Hummel made the controversial decision to close the agency’s adoption waiting list — which had grown so long that many parents were waiting up to a decade for a child, anyway. From then on, all prospective parents were told the only way to adopt would be to foster the child first.
Many parents complained to the agency board and the local MPP, and some chose to adopt children from other areas. But Hummel stood his ground.
“There was a lot of criticism from colleagues in the field. We were seen as renegades,” he acknowledges. “It took several years to educate parents. But once you explained it, most embraced the idea.
“Under the old system, the adults had no risk while the children took all the risks,” he says. “Most people understand that’s just wrong.”
At first, the agency placed children most likely to become Crown wards with foster-to-adopt families. But it became hard to predict which children would not return home. So in 2005, under Flegel’s leadership, the agency began to phase in a policy of using only foster-to-adopt homes for all children under age 2. By 2007, the practice expanded to every child under age 6, and as of last year, every child under age 12 is placed immediately in a foster-to-adopt home. The agency hopes the policy will eventually cover all children under age 18.
The results have been powerful. Since 2005, half of the children who are adopted through the agency have been served in just one home, versus 22 per cent in a similar-size CAS. The agency, which has about 50 foster-to-adopt families, has had no trouble recruiting parents to the cause. In fact, Elgin County has a surplus of parents who are providing care for children from neighbouring agencies.
One reason is that the agency, which investigates between 750 and 800 families a year and provides ongoing service to about 250 families, tries to keep most children from coming into care. Instead, the focus is on supporting children in their families or extended families and providing subsidies for so-called “kinship agreements” when needed.
But when children can’t remain in their homes, the foster-to-adopt system aims to cause the least disruption, Flegel says
Marianne and Dave Miller are typical foster-to-adopt parents in St. Thomas.
They had already adopted a baby boy privately in 2006 and wanted more children.
“At first, the thought (of foster-to-adopt) scared us,” says Marianne, 31. “But then we realized it would be the quickest way to get some kids, which is what we really wanted.”
By coincidence, they were offered two boys who were members of the youth group the couple was leading at their local church.
The brothers, Peter, 9 and Jacob, 13, were from a family of nine siblings born to Mexican Mennonite immigrants. Family violence, malnutrition and squalid living conditions prompted Children’s Aid to remove all the children.
The brothers had been in at least four different foster homes in the seven years before they ended up with the Millers.
“It was so unsteady moving all the time,” says Peter. “Every time I’d be thinking: ‘Hey, I like it here.’ And then: ‘Oh no. Moving again.’ ”
When the boys moved in with the Millers, Marianne assured them they would be in their lives forever, no matter what happened. Within six months, the boys became available for adoption. They say it was the happiest day of their lives.
Since then, the Millers have had seven more children in their home. They would have adopted all of them, Marianne says. But all went home to their birth parents. She admits it hasn’t been easy.
In one case involving an 18-month-old girl, Children’s Aid went to court seeking permanent custody that would have paved the way for the family to adopt. The boys were ecstatic at the possibility of having a baby sister. But the judge ordered the child back to her birth mother. The Millers had three hours to pack up the baby and take her home.
“The hardest part is putting them in their car seat,” Marianne says, her voice catching as she recounts the story. “You don’t want them to feel something bad is going to happen to them. You don’t want them to see you cry.”
When a second foster-to-adopt baby went home last December after the family had cared for him for about six months, they had a day to prepare.
“I held him for a long part of the day,” says Peter. “It was really sad.”
But the family would not have it any other way.
“Little kids don’t know how to cope with grief and loss,” Marianne says. “We are a strong family and we can cope better than little kids.”
Marianne has forged strong bonds with all of the birth families and regularly helps out with babysitting.
The program that helped the Miller family has attracted notice outside of St. Thomas. Provincial Children’s Minister Laurel Broten says she is “encouraged” by it.
“This model is one of many innovative approaches that Children’s Aid Societies across the province have developed in order to find more permanent homes for waiting kids,” she said in an email.
“I encourage Children’s Aid Societies to share ideas that are working in the field, so that we continue to develop a strong adoption system in Ontario.”
Elgin County is “a pioneer,” in the foster-to-adopt model, says Virginia Rowden of the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies, which represents the province’s 53 children’s aid bodies.
However, Rowden thinks the model would be difficult to transplant to a big city such as Toronto with so many newcomers who don’t have extended family here to rely on for kinship care. Toronto’s ethnic and religious diversity also makes it trickier to place children in appropriate homes. And there are fewer families with a parent at home to care for a needy child, because most GTA families need two incomes to make ends meet, she says.
“But you can’t deny that it is a jewel of a model that works really well in that community,” Rowden says. “There are many elements that can and are being replicated on a provincial basis now. Certainly the leading thinking . . . is going in the direction of the ‘one child, one placement’ model Elgin does so well.”
Even in Elgin County, however, there are hiccups where the system still “gets in the way,” Flegel says.
Jolean and Mike Anderson began the foster-to-adopt process a second time with a baby girl in June. Jolean took a second parental leave from her job as a claims adjuster for London Life. But Employment Insurance recently denied her nine-month parental leave claim because her foster baby isn’t legally available for adoption.
The couple just sold their home and is in the process of moving into a new one nearby to accommodate the new baby. They are frantic.
Losing Jolean’s current income is bad enough, but EI is also threatening to recoup the money she was paid during her first parental leave for Carter, now 1 1/2 years old.
“With our closing and moving costs, we certainly didn’t plan for this,” says the sleep-deprived mother, who gets up several times in the night to feed the 2-month-old baby.
“It makes no sense to keep working and put her in daycare at this age,” she says.
Many foster-to-adopt families have two parents in the workplace and when infants are placed in their homes, parental benefits have never been denied, Flegel says.
If EI’s decision stands, it would have huge implications for the agency’s foster-to-adopt model, she says.
The agency, which is helping the Andersons appeal, will do everything it can to help the family in the meantime, she adds.
Back on Jack VanNoord’s lush 100-acre hobby farm on the outskirts of St. Thomas, the 67-year-old retired Ford Motor Co. plant supervisor is reluctant to take credit for what he and his wife Coby started a generation ago with baby Kris.
In fact, VanNoord and Coby, who died of cancer last year, didn’t realize the role their family played until several years ago when the agency contacted them as part of research it was conducting on the foster-to-adopt program.
“They did all the work,” he says.
Kris, now 25, is in the trucking business, like his three older brothers.
Engaged to be married in September, he relishes his large extended family where as many as 50 people regularly turn up for Christmas parties and annual reunions.
Although Kris confesses he is somewhat surprised to hear how his adoption changed an agency, he is happy to be part of history.
“I think it’s a good thing,” he says. “A very good thing for kids.”
|
posted Apr 19, 2011 11:48 AM by Canadian Coalition of Adoptive Families
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY
Globe and Mail Update
Published Friday, Apr. 08, 2011 11:23AM EDT
The founder and general manager of an international adoption agency are
accused of defrauding the agency of hundreds of thousands of dollars
almost two years after trustees first found “questionable” spending in
its records.
Cambridge, Ont.-based Imagine Adoption, which matched up Canadians with
orphans from Ghana and Ethiopia, declared bankruptcy in July, 2009,
leaving hundreds of families in adoption limbo.
Now, the agency’s founder, Susan Hayhow, and its general manager, Rick
Hayhow, are charged with breach of trust and multiple counts of fraud,
totalling more than $420,000.
Police allege the frauds took place between January, 2007 and the
agency’s bankruptcy declaration. During that time, police say, money
paid for adoption services was spent on international vacations,
renovations to the couple’s shared home in Cambridge, food and clothing.
The charges are cold comfort to the families, many of whom have moved on or tried to adopt through other avenues.
But it raises questions about how an agency involved in the increasingly
lucrative business of international adoptions, whose license was
renewed multiple times by the Ontario government, could have operated
for so long with its financial irregularities unnoticed.
International adoption has become a multi-billion-dollar global
industry; children’s advocates argue it’s under-regulated and ripe for
abuse.
Ontario has “some of the most comprehensive international adoption
licensing requirements in Canada,” said Anne Machowski, a spokeswoman
with the Ministry of Children and Youth Services. Imagine Adoption,
which was first licensed in 2005, had its license renewed annually.
“Why hasn’t the Ontario government yet taken responsibility for their
failure to properly monitor an international adoption agency?” said
Ingrid Phaneuf, who had been waiting for adoptions from the agency. Ms.
Phaneuf has since adopted two boys, eight and 10, from Ontario.
Children and Youth Services Minister Laurel Broten wasn’t available for comment Friday, Ms. Machowski said.
Since the Imagine Adoption case, the province has strengthened its
licensing process: It now requires an audited financial statement, an
annual report available to the public and a report from the board of
directors that outlines agency operations and activities.
“When the Ministry became aware of the difficulties concerning Imagine
Adoption we acted quickly and immediately,” Ms. Machowski said in an
e-mail, adding that the province worked with BDO Dunwoody to help
families affected and ensure the agency’s orphans in Ethiopia were safe.
(The orphanage Imagine Adoption was working with in Ghana, which the
Canadian agency did not operate, was shut down by the Ghanaian
government over allegations of child-trafficking right around the time
of Imagine Adoption’s bankruptcy declaration.)
Susan Taves, the BDO Dunwoody trustee charged with handling Imagine
Adoption’s bankruptcy and restructuring in 2009, says spending
irregularities at the agency were apparent when she began going through
its financial records.
“It was clear from our banking review there was some really questionable
stuff,” she said. This included travel to the United States and
renovations that clearly hadn’t been done on Imagine Adoption’s
Cambridge office. But Ms. Taves said she wouldn’t expect the province to
have noticed that.
“Licensing is like issuing a license for someone to be a car salesman:
They’re not going to be in there every day to see if the price of cars
is going up or down,” she said. “This is an operating issue I think it
would have been difficult for a licensing body to see.”
Mr. and Ms. Hayhow are on record as having declared personal bankruptcy
in 1996, with $165,712 in declared liabilities. The couple bought a
house on Roseview Avenue in Cambridge in 2004. It was sold for $417,000
in 2010.
When Imagine Adoption declared bankruptcy, the couple owed money to a
swimming pool business, a home-renovation contractor and a landscaper
who confirmed the work was done at Ms. Hayhow's private residence.
Imagine Adoption has since restructured and is technically operational,
although its adoptions are being run by Mission of Tears in Toronto.
For board member Christine Starr, things turned out all right: Her
19-month-old daughter Soleila arrived from Ethiopia in December.
“I would do it all again in a heartbeat.”
With reports from Celia Donnelly and Jennifer MacMillan
|
posted Apr 19, 2011 11:46 AM by Canadian Coalition of Adoptive Families
Posted:
Apr 13, 2011 4:09 PM ET
Last Updated:
Apr 13, 2011 6:42 PM ET
Ontario’s Liberal government has introduced a bill aimed at making it easier to adopt a child.
On Wednesday the Liberals announced proposed changes that if
accepted, will make thousands more children eligible for adoption,
including about 9,000 children that are wards of the Crown in the care
of Children's Aid Societies (CAS).
About 70 per cent of kids in CAS care currently have no chance of being adopted because they are the subject of court battles.
Children's Services Minister Laurel Broten wants the law changed and
is promising to make it simpler for would-be parents to get through the
adoption system.
The new law would: - Create more ways of matching families to children.
- Reduce waiting times for the home assessments needed for approvals.
- Reform the patchwork of subsidies that CAS offers adoptive families.
Broten said she aims to get the bill passed before the legislature dissolves for the election. |
posted Mar 13, 2011 7:00 PM by Canadian Coalition of Adoptive Families
By Norma Greenaway, Postmedia News
March 5, 2011 OTTAWA
- Jessica has gone from being a toddler who was homeless and
couch-surfed with her young mother, to a 12-year-old advocate for
adopted kids and their parents. She recently appeared before a
parliamentary committee studying how to provide more support to adoptive
parents, such as giving them the same number of weeks of maternity
benefits as birth mothers get under the employment- insurance program. ``I
may not have been born in my mom's tummy, but I was born in her
heart,'' the youngster told the committee, even while sharing the angst
she felt after being adopted at age six into what she now calls ``my
forever family.'' ``I had a horrible first year of school. I was
teased and left out of everything,'' she said. It was painful being
treated differently because she was adopted, she said. The
unhappiness is a bit of ancient history now, Jessica said, largely
because she found solace in a support group for adopted children and
their parents, known as PALS. ``It's boosted my self-esteem and
shown me I'm not alone,'' she declared before turning the floor over to
her teary-eyed adoptive mother. Carol van der Veer pleaded with
the Commons human resources committee to rewrite EI legislation so that
adoptive parents get the same benefits as birth parents. She and
her husband, Stephen, of Newcastle, Ont., adopted Jessica and her
younger brother, Justin, six years ago. The couple was looking to adopt
only one child, she said, but couldn't imagine separating the two
youngsters, who had been living in a foster family for the previous 2
1/2 years. Van der Veer urged the committee to move to amend the
EI Act to give adoptive parents the same 50 weeks of benefits provided
to biological parents. The current rule gives them just 35 weeks. She
and others said they need the time to bond with their adopted children,
some of whom have lived in several foster homes before suddenly being
expected to understand they have been adopted into a permanent family. The
committee ended its public hearings last month after testimonials from
four young adults who talked about the challenges they experienced in
foster care and after being adopted. It will write its report and
recommendations over the next several weeks. Adoption advocates
say they hold little hope the upcoming federal budget, announced
Wednesday for March 22, will include plans to wipe out the 15-week
difference in EI benefits between birth parents and adopted parents. But
they hope a favourable committee report will at least get the ball
rolling. Legal attempts to challenge the 35-week limit for
adoptive parents as a violation of the charter's equality provisions
have failed, forcing adoptive parents and their advocates to focus on
getting Parliament to change the law. Van der Veer said qualifying for longer benefits would make a big difference in the lives of children and adopted parents. ``The
first year was the biggest struggle. You doubt yourself. You wonder
`Did we ruin their lives?''' van der Veer said in an interview as she
described the confusion her children, who had endured years of upheaval,
initially felt about their adoption. ``I needed to be home a lot longer with my children.'' Van
der Veer readily acknowledges she didn't go through the physical
strains of pregnancy and childbirth. But, she said, the emotional
strains and bonding challenges associated with adopting toddlers and
older children are enormous. Despite the challenges, Van der Veer
said she and her husband are thrilled at how the family has grown
together and wish more Canadians would consider adopting children living
in care in Canada. © Copyright (c) Postmedia News |
posted Nov 20, 2010 6:52 PM by Canadian Coalition of Adoptive Families
[
updated Nov 20, 2010 6:55 PM
]
|
From the Adoption Council of Ontario!
November 17, 2010
Statement to the Legislature
The Honourable Laurel Broten Minister of Children and Youth Services
Adoption Awareness Month
Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to recognize November as Adoption Awareness Month.
This month, we thank the thousands of families across Ontario who have
opened their hearts and homes to children who need a family.
These moms and dads, grandmothers and grandfathers, brothers and sisters
are providing what many of us so often take for granted: a loving
family that is there for us through life's many challenges.
This month, and year-round, we also thank all those who work every day
to help find permanent, loving homes for children and youth in the care
of children's aid societies.
Because of these dedicated professionals, children and youth are finding safe, secure places they can call home, every day.
Finally, this
month, we raise awareness about the many positive benefits adoption can
bring to individuals and families who may never have considered it
before. Adoption can be an incredibly rewarding experience for both the child being adopted and the family opening their hearts and homes.
As we speak, many of the children in the care of children's aid societies are eligible for adoption.
Some are toddlers, some are older; some are siblings, some are only
children; some have no identified special needs; some need special
supports. Every child is unique.
What they all have in common is that they will thrive with the right family in the right environment.
Mr. Speaker, I have been privileged in my role as Minister of Children
and Youth Services to have listened to many of our children and youth in
care as they talked about their dreams of finding a family.
Today, there are many options for kids to find the
permanent, safe, loving homes that will lead to better outcomes.
Adoption is, perhaps, the most well known. But legal custody is another option.
It allows a child to be raised in a new permanent family, while
maintaining a connection to their birth families. Another possibility is
for a child to live with family members.
The key, however, is permanence. That's why our government has focused on permanent, loving homes for children since 2006.
We believed - and still do - that this is the very best option for them to reach their full potential.
In 2009-10, about 1,000 children and youth were placed for adoption - an
increase of 21 per cent over 2008-09. While that number is promising,
there is still more work to do.
In the aboriginal community, especially, we have to do more to keep
aboriginal families together, or place children in traditional customary
care in their communities so
that they can remain connected to their culture and traditions.
Just recently, I visited the Kawartha-Haliburton CAS, where I met a
woman who knew all about the range of options available because she had
12 children. Four birth children, four foster children, two adopted
children, and two she had legal custody over.
I also recently met many prospective parents and adoption workers from
across Ontario at the Ontario Adoption Resources Exchange. They all had
one goal: to try and find permanent homes for children in care.
Many CASs, across Ontario, are making changes - from special committees
to promoting adoption to foster parents - to see that more children and
youth find permanent homes.
Mr. Speaker, because of these changes and the hard work of children's
aid societies, we are making progress: fewer kids are coming into care
and more are finding permanent homes.
But there is more to
do.
Mr. Speaker, we all want better outcomes for children in our care, and more kids in safe, loving and permanent homes.
Let that goal guide us this month and throughout the year as we work to open a world of possibility to more and more children.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
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