How to Respond to the Russian Adoption issues

[Dobela]

https://atl.etapestry.com/prod/viewEmailAsPage.do?key=cbc32bf8a746c87884c5bb1a1a4289&erRef=1333.0.48676623&memberId=480580879&personaRef=1333.0.48677578&databaseId=JointCouncilonInternational&mailingId=12115274&jobRef=1333.0.150253663

 

 

 

We Are The Truth

 

 

 

 

A Campaign and Call to Action

 

 

 

 

 

The outrageous treatment of Artyem by his adoptive family has rightfully resulted in outrage by the Governments of Russia and the United States and all who care about children. The tragedy has cast a light on intercountry adoption that says it is not safe, the system failed and adopted children cause insurmountable problems. The heartbreak of Artyem Saviliev’s abandonment has once again elevated a singular incident to a level which may result in the suspension of intercountry adoption. Suspending adoption, even temporarily, will only cause thousands of children to suffer the debilitating effects of life in an orphanage.

 

 

 

You, the community of adoptees, adoptive parents, adoptive grandparents, child welfare professionals and child advocates know that the outrageous and indefensible actions of one parent are not indicative of how children are treated by adoptive families. You know that families who encounter difficulties do not simply abandon their child. You know that help is available, that solutions are found and that families can thrive. And you know that suspending adoption does not protect children but only subjects them to the depravity of an institution…and an entire life without a family.

 

 

 

You, the adoption community know the truth. You live the truth. You are the truth.

 

 

 

Join our campaign to bring the truth to light and help children in need find a permanent and safe family.

 

 

 

 

 

What You Can Do

 

 

 

1) Sign the letter to President Medvedev and President Obama: The letter asks both Presidents to ensure that intercountry adoption continues uninterrupted and to aggressively investigate and prosecute anyone involved in the abuse of children. You can sign anytime, but doing so before Tuesday night would help us get the letters to both Presidents before President Medvedev leaves the U.S. To sign the letter, click here.

 

 

 

2) We Are The Truth – an adoption blogger day: To ensure the world knows about every successful adoption, on Thursday, April 15, 2010 blog about your adoption or the adoption of someone you know. It doesn’t matter if your adoption is with Russia, domestic or otherwise international. Let the world know your truth!

 

 

 

 

 

3) Tell Your Truth with Video - make sure the world sees, hears and feels the thousands of successful adoptions from Russia by:

 

1. Send Joint Council your successful Russian adoption video via email to alexa.m@jcics.org.
   

1. 
   
   • <LI class=MsoNormal>Video should be a maximum of 3 minutes.
     
   • A release must be sent to Joint Council or we cannot accept your video. For a copy of the release, click here.
     

1. Joint Council will translate the video into Russian and post it on our YouTube Channel.
   

 

4) Tell Your Truth with Words and Photos

 

1. <LI class=MsoNormal>Send Joint Council your successful Russian adoption story via email to alexa.m@jcics.org. Send us your stories through:
   
   • <LI class=MsoNormal>Photos (please do not send more than 10) <LI class=MsoNormal>Essays (maximum 500 words)
     
   • A release must be sent to Joint Council or we cannot accept your story and/or pictures. For a copy of the release, click here.
     

[*]Joint Council will then compile the stories and pictures, translate them into Russian and post them on our website and/or blog.

 

5) Share Your Truth

 

1. <LI class=MsoNormal>Joint Council will post, forward and share your stories via Facebook, Twitter, and blogs. Joint Council will be updating our YouTube Channel and Facebook page as the stories get compiled and translated, please subscribe to us on YouTube, Twitter and Fan us on Facebook.
   
2. You do the same by posting on your Facebook, Twitter, blog and website!
   

 

Want to help more?

 

• <LI class=MsoNormal>Are you willing to speak to the media about your Russian adoption? If so, please email betheanswer@jcics.org with the following:
  
  • <LI class=MsoNormal>Your name(s) <LI class=MsoNormal>City, State of residence <LI class=MsoNormal>Contact Phone Numbers <LI class=MsoNormal>Contact Email
    
  • Short 4 sentence bio about your adoption
    

  <LI class=MsoNormal>Do you speak Russian?

  • We are in need of individual volunteers who can help our staff translate the videos and text quickly. If you are interested in helping, email Joint Council at intern@jcics.org.
    

  [*]Do you live in the Alexandria, VA area?

  • Joint Council is in need of short term volunteers over the next two weeks, email rebeccah@jcics.org if you would like to volunteer.
    

[Dobela]

Sorry, space limits didn't allow the rest of this post above LOL. Then with the 'server is busy' messages....

 

I received this forwarded email (ablve) from a social worker involved with international adoptions that I know personally. It has a list of people and places you can contact - especially if you are an adoptive parent of Russian born children. Government officials need to know that not all international adoptions are destined to fail and that Americans do not categorically abuse/abandon/neglect children adopted from other countries. They need to hear the loving success stories!

[jujsky]

Someone e-mailed this to me earlier today & I signed :001_smile:

[Dobela]

I signed it today as well. :)

[Laurie4b]

Hearing success stories is one part of the puzzle; however what is not even touched with this petition is the real issue: RAD.

 

 

 

Based on what I've read, I think it's quite possible that this mother now being villified could very well have been an appropriate mother to a child within normal limits. Very, very few people can provide what kids with RAD need. I blame the adoption agencies for making the placement and not providing adequate support.

 

 

 

I would sign in a heartbeat a petition that called for no adoptions of older children (within or without the country) unless: 1) the child had been evaluated for RAD

 

2) The parents thinking they were adopting a child with RAD had additional training and screening beyond that of other adoptive parents, including exposure to unsuccessful RAD adoptions

 

3) Children with RAD or suspected RAD would not go the straight adoption route, but to foster care with the potential adoptive family. They would remain as foster children for 2 years. During that period of time, the process of moving toward adoption could be stopped if the child was not able to adapt to life in a family setting.

 

3) Support networks were in place for foster/adoptive parents whose kids turned out to have RAD that included qualified professionals in their area and respite care

 

4) A clear procedure was in place for the event that the adoption needed to be disrupted. In the case of out-of-country adoptions, this would specify which country took custody of the child and paid for his/her group care and treatment.

[plansrme]

 

This seems to be a popular sentiment, and I am curious as to why so many think the American agency is at fault here.

 

Even if one accepts, and I think this is debatable, that the American agency is somehow responsible for this child for life, is there any indication that she even contacted them?

 

If you are referring to the Russian agency, again, I would be curious as to what they would have known about the child's mental state.

 

I am not trying to defend the agency, as I don't have any knowledge about these circumstances either way. Just wondering how we're all so sure WACAP is part of the problem.

 

Terri

[TravelingChris]

I agree with Laurie.

 

In this particular case, the Russians are stilling saying the child has only flat feet. That is almost certainly a lie since the child had an alcoholic mother and probably has FAS and other problems. The myth out there is that all these kids need is nice homes, good food, and loving parents. Not true and I think it is cruel to mislead people to think that the children they think have no problems actually have extremely serious problems that are often lifelong disabilities.

 

All children come with no guarantees but presumably all of us here porotected our children from fetal assault such as alcohol poisoning or illicit drugs. Unfortunately, the children coming from Russian orphanages have often been exposed to these things in utero and further harmed by neglect and possibly abuse in early infancy. Depending on the child, that type of harm is often not really rehabilitatable. It is very sad all around.

[FaithManor]

I think the Russian agency was woefully deluded. The statistics on FAS and RAD coming out of former Soviet Bloc countries is astronomical. Vodka is cheap, prenatal care is poor, extreme neglect is common, and help is many times non-existent; early intervention is also unavailable.

 

FAS is probably the least of what this mother was dealing with and if RAD was present, she may have literally been at the end of her rope. While we would all like to believe that there are lots of resources available for mental health care in American, this is not so for children and especially for RAD. Most insurance companies will not pay for more than 10 days per year of residential care, either group home, psychiatric facility, or camp and at upwards of $1000.00 per day, it becomes something most adoptive families can not begin to afford. The only residential treatment facility designed to deal with RAD cases here in Michigan was closed several years ago because the state did not want to pay the high cost and neither did private insurance - Michigan has a lovely reputation for telling half-truths and lies to adoptive families in order to get the RAD kids off the government pay check. Though Children's hospital in Detroit will take them for up to ten days, that's pretty much the max anyone can get....that's not much respite care for someone dealing with a child so determined to die or kill (and this is a pervasive problem with RAD kids) that they are lighting their beds on fire and charging people with any sharp object they can get their hands on.

 

A very close friend of mine was severely injured when a RAD foster care child stabbed her with a knife he had sharpened in the back yard - he broke a lock off the toolbox to get at a utility knife. He was only six years old at the time.

 

I have personally restrained a four year old RAD child (wrapped in a sheet - a type of restraint we used to call "The Waley Wrap" after Waley children's center), who screamed and struggled so hard for 45 minutes that I ached so badly I didn't know if I could continue. I was completely drenched with sweat. He promptly threw this same tantrum again two hours later. I was only providing a day of respite care and felt like I had been brutally assaulted by the time his adoptive parents arrived. He did this every single day and that is the least of what he did.

 

Don't judge the mom too harshly. We need far more controls on foreign adoptions coming out of the former Soviet Bloc countries, and definitely far more mental health resources for children. I also agree that there should be more resources for parents who take a RAD child and more options for residential care and psychiatric treatment.

 

Even if this child only had FAS, if the Russian adoption agency was not honest (and many times they aren't) then it could still have been outside the bounds of what this mom could handle if she was untrained. FAS kids can have huge difficulties learning right from wrong, impulsive beyond impulsive, and can have long-term memory damage so about the time the parent thinks they've finally mastered a skill, they forget and it really is forgetting as in "though I may have done this a thousand times, I am suddenly completely clueless as to how to do this." Ask me how I know, I spent some time as a music therapist. I held a 13 year old FAS student in my arms because, though she could read on grade level, she had just realized she couldn't remember the alphabet! No joke, it was three more days before she finally recovered that information and could say her ABC's. For the child that is fairly put-together, the knowledge that "my memory comes and goes", is traumatic. Imagine how you'd feel if you regularly thought you were losing your mind!

 

I don't think we know the whole story and I would want to sign a petition with far more protections for both the adoptive family and the child.

 

Faith

[KerriF]

Perhaps this situation will force light on a subject that so many don't even know exists. I have a brother adopted from Russia with RAD. At the same time my parents adopted we knew 5 other families who were adopting. All of the kids were said (by Russian officals) to be perfectly find. ALL of them have had problems and ALL suffer from RAD. I'm not saying these children shouldn't be adopted, but it is time for Russia to take some responsibilty for this too. It isn't an "American" problem. These children don't adjust and they don't bond and the issues run the spectrum in violence.

[RanchGirl]

it is time for Russia to take some responsibilty for this too.

 

I agree... I haven't formed an opinion yet on Artyem and his adoptive mother because I don't think all the facts are known. But I really can't believe the Russian officials who are coming out with this "he is only flat footed" statement. They should be embarrassed and outraged at the poor treatment of their children in orphanages (as well as in utero) and calling for solutions to these very serious problems, starting with maternal care and education -- not calling for an end to the many well-meaning American families who want to adopt these poor children.

Edited April 14, 2010 by RanchGirl

[Laurie4b]

This seems to be a popular sentiment, and I am curious as to why so many think the American agency is at fault here.

 

Even if one accepts, and I think this is debatable, that the American agency is somehow responsible for this child for life, is there any indication that she even contacted them?

 

If you are referring to the Russian agency, again, I would be curious as to what they would have known about the child's mental state.

 

I am not trying to defend the agency, as I don't have any knowledge about these circumstances either way. Just wondering how we're all so sure WACAP is part of the problem.

 

Terri

 

Honestly, I don't know for sure about this particular agency and this particular mother--none of us do. I was intending to make a more general statement. I should have said "agencies" rather than "agency." There is too much dishonesty in older adoption that takes advantage of naive couples who just want to love a child, and way too little follow-up and support. THAT is the problem.