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A big thank you to the Homan family for such a great story of advocacy in addition. #saveadoptions. Source:  https://www.dailystandard.com By Sydney Albert FORT RECOVERY – The adoption process is a long and challenging road that can sometimes end in heartbreak. A local mother who has adopted internationally five times, however, says welcoming a child in need into the family is well worth the effort. Alison Homan and her husband, Ted, had always wanted a big family. They had said they wanted four children, and during the first two and a half years of marriage, Alison Homan delivered three babies. However, one child didn’t live long after birth, and the back-to-back pregnancies were taking their toll on Homan, who didn’t feel she could handle another one. Continue reading>

There are  two easy steps  you can take today to help save international adoptions: First,   sign  our  White House petition . The White House promises it will respond if the petition  receives 100,000 signatures in 30 days . Second , we also invite you to  share it  on Facebook, Instagram, or other social media platforms and to  invite your friends and family (anyone over 13 years of age with an email address can sign)to sign the White House petition . 15 million orphans globally  have lost both of their parents. 81 million Americans have considered adoption , but for many it is too complex and too expensive. International adoptions by Americans have plummeted by 81%  since 2004, from about 23,000 adoptions in 2004 to only 4,200 international adoptions budgeted in 2018 by the international adoption accrediting entity. If this dramatic trend in international adoptions by Americans continues, international adoptions may completely en...

Adoption advocates say the State Department is making international adoption rarer and more expensive than ever to consolidate government control over private agencies. Source:  thefederalist.com By Jayme Metzgar In September 2016, just as the presidential race was entering its final weeks, the State Department quietly proposed new regulations governing international adoption. Adoption advocates sounded the alarm, saying the regulations would severely hamper Americans’ ability to adopt overseas.  I wrote about this for The Federalist  just days before the November election. Then, to almost everyone’s surprise, Donald Trump was elected president. On the day of his inauguration, Trump began a regulatory reform effort, announcing a moratorium on all new regulations from executive agencies. Ten days later, he issued an executive order requiring agencies to repeal two regulations for every new one they proposed. Continue reading>

Dear Friends, family and, colleagues, Next week will be exciting and should be a  monumental  in causing change in the State Department of Intercountry Adoption.  A mind blowing article should come out Monday morning in the  Federalist  and Tuesday morning Nathan Gwilliam, CEO of  Adoption.com  and  Save Adoptions’ President, Ron Stoddart, Esq., will be on the  Glenn Beck Program . Put these on your calendars to catch them both.  You don’t want to miss these!!  However, since  the most effective route to change is through the White House , we have also created an online Petition to the White House at: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/save-adoptions-reverse-80-decline-intercountry-adoptions-and-solve-us-international-adoption-crisis Please click on the link, read the petition and, if you agree, sign it today.  The White House guarantees they will respond if we have 100,000 signatures within 30 days – but we want to...

The US Department of State is considering banning photolistings for children available for international adoption. There is a lot we don’t know and the State Department has not issued a final rule, but they are currently considering whether the practice of “soft referrals” is a violation of their regulations. We have not seen an official definition of “soft referral” but it appears to include photolisting—or more specifically allowing international adoption agencies to place a child who is on a photolist. Photolisting is a common practice in both foster care adoption and international adoption. In fact, it is considered best practice in child welfare for finding homes for harder-to-place children–older kids, kids with health issues, and sibling groups. Continue reading.

#IntercountryAdoption advocates fear that the fee structure planned by a new State Department accreditation contractor could threaten the operation of the largest American placing agencies. https://wp.me/p1VkZN-1As

After four long years, he’s home at last! # MikePompeo #SaveAdoption #HelpUsAdopt #MakeAdoptionGreatAgain https://hopscotchadoptions.wordpress.com/2018/03/14/we-all-could-use-a-little-good-news-appointee-to-secretary-of-state-mike-pompeo-has-a-real-heart-for-intercountry-adoption/

See video. More than 52,000 children have been caught crossing our southern border since October of last year, including several thousand children from Guatemala. Until 2007, more than 5,000 Guatemalan children were adopted by parents from other countries each year. Under pressure from groups like Unicef, however, Guatemala shut down intercountry adoptions. Today, the only way Guatemalan children can come to the U.S. is to cross the border illegally. Reason TV took a critical look at Guatemala’s intercountry adoption policies back in 2011. "Abandoned in Guatemala," produced by Paul Feine and Alex Manning. Approximately 20 minutes. Original release date was October 6, 2011. Original writeup is below. "If we shut down international adoptions, that’s 5,000 kids a year whose lives we are ruining, whose lives could have been wonderful, and we’re dooming them by shutting them into these institutions. So, to me, that’s fundamental evil." —Harvard law professor Elizabeth Ba...

Take these steps: Watch  this short 3 minute   video . Familiarize yourself  with the problem and solution facing inter-country adoption. Share  this video on your personal Facebook page. Share  this video on your agency Facebook page. Forward  to adoptive families

Social media has revolutionized the way we connect with one another. This has meant that open adoption communication is more convenient than ever before. Join Tina Feigal as she shares strategies and tips on how adoptive parents can: 1. Talk to their child about searching 2. Be aware of oversharing someone else’s story 3. Identify safety risks and how to avoid them 4. Institute limits on screen time and location Register Now Tina Feigal, M.S., Ed.  is the Director of Family Engagement at Anu Family Services/Center for the Challenging Child in St. Paul, MN. As a former school psychologist, Tina’s passion is bringing peace to homes by helping caring adults to heal challenging child behavior with the specific, highly effective techniques of Present Moment Parenting.  Learn more about Tina Feigal >

What if RainbowKids could no longer show you the faces of children who are waiting for families? What if one person, with all the power, believed that families interested in adopting should not be allowed to view children who are  legally available for adoption ? Couched in legalese,with the invention of a new term called "soft referrals", that is exactly what is being proposed by the person heading the Office of Children’s Issues at the US Dept of State.  The idea is that no family without a homestudy should be allowed to receive information on a legally waiting child.  This is completely contrary to how US Foster Adoption works for waiting children.  Children waiting for adoption in the USA may be  viewed by anyone  visiting the national database at  AdoptUsKids.org , or any of the state websites featuring waiting children in fostercare. Under new leadership , the Office of Children’s Issues has taken radical steps to impose new fees on families wish...

Source:  http://newsok.com (The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) Mark Montgomery, Grinnell College and Irene Powell, Grinnell College (THE CONVERSATION) When Ethiopia stopped allowing its children to be adopted by foreign parents in January, it became the latest country to eliminate or sharply curtail the practice. In recent decades South Korea, Romania, Guatemala, China, Kazakhstan and Russia – all former leaders in foreign adoption – have also banned or cut back on international custody transfers. In 2005, almost 46,000 children were adopted across borders, roughly half of them headed to a new life in the United States. By 2015 international adoptions had dropped 72 percent, to 12,000 in total. Just 5,500 of these children ended up in the U.S., with the remainder landing in Italy and Spain. Today, most children adopted internationally come from China, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ukraine. But even...