[Cjmeck]

Thanks for the PACT interpretation of the report; I completely agree. I don't know if I would have agreed prior to becoming a transracial parent; but I can see the benefit in extra education now. Its funny, when we first started the adoption process, we were going to adopt from Korea. So we signed with this agency and they sent us a dvd about transracial adoption--called Eyes Wide Open or something like that. Basically, saying that the color-blind approach is not helpful for the child, ect... But then we switch gears, decide to adopt domestically, decided to be open to race, and guess what education the new agency provided?? None. They gave us a list of books to read on transracial adoption. But never in the homestudy did the social worker want to discuss the books or what we learned or how we planned to successfully raise an AA child. Now that we have a biracial child (AA/CC) we are encountering issues (see other thread) that we were not prepared for. It would have been nice to get some counseling. Thankfully, dh and I do have several AA friends who we've reached out to for guidance and advice in handling some issues. But the SW never even asked if we had any connection to the AA culture. We were surprised at how "hands-off" the agency was with regard to race. And now our placing agency (different from HS agency) doesn't even want to discuss it... I think a certain amount of education for anyone adopting transracially should be required.