September 2018

September 25, 2018. Taking A Chance on Love. Dr. Carolyn Roy-Bornstein has written a moving article about how she and her husband came to be foster parents of two teenage daughters. One topic Dr. Roy-Bornstein discusses is the time her daughter Janine told her that foster children are terrified of making mistakes, quoting her daughter who said, "In foster care, you always feel like if you do something wrong, you can be taken away at any moment. Sent somewhere else to live." We as a society spend far too little time thinking of all the losses and burdens foster children must live with, even in good homes. To read this article, please click here.

September 24, 2018. "The Client: How States are Profiting from the Child's Right to Protection." Professor De Leith Gossett has written a revelatory article which was published earlier this month in the University of Memphis Law Review. Using the framework of a John Grisham novel, Professor Gossett details how the new private industry of out-sourced foster care and states themselves profit when children are removed from their biological families and transformed into wards of the state. Neither the drafters of the Adoption and Safe Families Act, nor the latest child welfare reform, Families First, conceived that states would actually balance their budgets using foster children's entitlements. This article is found at 48 U. Mem. L. Rev. 753 (2018).

September 12, 2018. Many Foster Children at High Risk for Lead Poisoning. Children exposed to lead paint during their early years may develop permanent physical and mental disabilities. The New York City government has revealed that both in its housing projects and in privately owned building that accommodate families with Section 8 housing vouchers, authorities have failed to comply with federal lead paint standards. Many of the affected populations are children in foster care. Dealing with lead paint-caused issues is yet another roadblock for these children that they will have to overcome. More Information.

September 11, 2018. USCIS Update on Citizenship Certificates. USCIS has released an update on U.S. Citizenship Certificates (COC) for international adopted children. The Buffalo Field Office processes these certificates for children who have arrived with IR-3 and IH-3 visas. USCIS will mail the COCs of eligible children under 14 within 60 days of arrival to the U.S. Local field offices will process the COCs for eligible children over the age ofv 14. If you notice a mistake on the COC you have 10 business days to notify the Buffalo field office or three business days to notify your local field office if you received the COC locally. Afterwards, or to obtain a replacement certificate, you must file Form N-565, Application for Replacement of Naturalization/Citizenship Document. You can find More Information here.

September 10, 2018. Training Opportunities. The Department of State has alerted us that there is a webinar opportunity, presented by the Quality Improvement Center for Adoption and Guardianship Support and Preservation (QIC-AG), which may be of interest to adoption professionals and others with interest in intercountry adoption. The webinar will be held on September 26, 2018 and the topic is "Developing an Adoption Competent Network of Providers." To register or for any questions please go to the QIC-AG website.

September 6, 2018. Disruption in Foster Care Placement. Most children in foster care have experienced at least two placements. Disruption of a placement, may be typical but it remains deeply traumatic for children. This article examines five key reasons why foster care placements disrupt: change of social worker, over-optimistic expectations, aging out, the degree of therapeutic and emotional care the child needs and changes in life-stages, especially the onset of adolescence. To read the article, please click here.

September 5, 2018. The Changing Face of International Adoption. Over the past five years, the number of internationally adopted children to the United States, the age and gender of children who were adopted internationally have changed drastically. The numbers first: 2013: 7,092 children adopted internationally as compared to 4,714 children adopted in 2017. In 2013, 45.4 percent of the adoptees were male; last year 50.1 percent were male. In 2013, 541 adoptees were infants under 12 months of age; in 2017 no infants were adopted at all. In 2013, the largest cohort of adoptees were aged between one and two years while last year the largest cohort were between the ages of 5 and 12. More Information.