[blc_822]

My philosophy is that as long as agencies fail to provide full disclosure concerning the histories of the children available for adoption, these children will never receive the help they need to be happy in their new homes and to grow into successful adults.

If your agency failed to tell you the truth about your adopted child and this failure led to your family living in fear of that child, or to their being financially devastated, I want to hear your story. I am trying to compile statistics concerning this issue, but I need your help. If you feel uncomfortable posting here, I can provide my email address.

Thanks for your help.

[aMarylandfamily]

... didn't give it all before attachment had occurred.

Having experienced a disruption of a sibling group due to mental health needs that we neither had the ability or capability (due to rural area and no services) to meet, we were very forceful with our words - no bi-polar, schizophrenia, etc. when having our adoption homestudy/placement considerations updated and yet the agency felt our family would be the perfect match for a 12 year old whom we met and became attached to quickly only to learn three months later (after many pre-placement visits and physical placement in our home) as they finally completed the required adoption family history summary that yes bi-polar did run in the family ... and a year after placement bi-polar symptoms and behaviors appeared to the point of the child requiring hospitalization and subsequent RTC placement for danger to self/danger to others!

So I'm not sure how this will work into your statistics ... yes, we were told there were emotional issues but not to the extent known until after meeting/attachment had occurred.

No we don't regret taking this child, we just regret what may be ahead for him if he cannot return home which will for some time remain up in the air ... the first home visit being "unsuccessful" after a threatening issue against another child in the home.

Hope this helps ... I can elaborate more in whatever area you need after you read this.

[Mom_Of_Many]

and they knew. They had to have known. They shut down the foster mother's home. And we had specifically asked for a child who was NOT a sexual abuse victim. We had a nother child whose profile was just the oppostie of what he is, but I truly believe the state (like every other person who came into contact with this good actor) had no idea how sick and dangerous he was. But they knew about the other kid. He should have been the youngest child in the home, and I'm sure they knew it.

[blc_822]

Because we are afraid to come forward and tell what has happened to our families, the problem continues. My family has suffered greatly, including my son, the sex offender, because agencies know that families will not go public when this happens to them.

I have contacts at several newspapers and with more than one network news program. (Including Dateline and PrimeTime) who have approached me about telling my family's story. I know that you cannot always trust the media. Of course, that too the agencies count on- Our fear of the media. I have been asked to locate others who will step forward, but I doubt any will.

Knowing that this problem exists (to this extent) would not have prevented me from adopting. But I would have been able to make a more informed decision concerning this particular child. Then I wouldn't have unknowingly exposed my younger children and grandchildren to grave danger within their own home!

Personally, I think it should be criminal when agencies do this.

[lucyjoy]

Part of the problem with speaking out for me is the fear of not being able to adopt again or worse, being set up for false abuse allegation claims.

I almost got killed because a worker intentionally intercepted records that could have gotten my son treatment faster. The shelter, who kicked him out for violent and unsafe behavior at 8, told me not to take him because something was really wrong. The worker told me it was nothing and he'd just run away a few times. The shelter tried to send information directly to me but the worker intercepted it. I was naive at the time and the worker had threatened to have all the children removed if I didn't follow the rules. I didn't want to lose my kids, so I let it go.

Knowing about my son's history would not have stopped me from adopting, but I wouldn't have wasted so much time finding him the right treetment. I also would have known to protect myself better.

[blc_822]

My agency tried to take my younger kids (there were absolutely no allegations against me ever), their rationale being that in IL the policy is to serve the victims! I guess they felt they'd feel more secure away from their own loving family. The state agency also openly admitted that their main reason for having said policy is because it costs less than providing services for the sex offender.

As I said before, this will never stop until some of us step forward. We may be a little wiser, but new families getting into foster care and adoption are not.

I hope there are people out there who are not too afraid to speak out.

[rindava]

I don't know what more could have been said about my son, but all the I can't remember of 327 pages of documents they sent me painted a very different picture then the little RADish that we live with now. I probably would not have said no, I would have been willing to accept just about any child.

Yesterday as he was trying to dismantal the fire place I was thinking "how did we get here???"

He was supposed to be severely autistic, moderatly retarded, etc....

The poor kid really is not any of those things except this is why you don't lock a kid in a room the 1st 7 years of his life.

I still think most sexually reactive kids can get help and grow up to be productive member of society.

I think the problems are in the area that
1.the mental health field and school systems do not know how to handle these kids
2. parents who adopt can't get access to mental health professional who are successfully treating these kids (and what good does going every other week do anyway?)
3. kids are still spending way too much time in foster care and bio-homes and being more damaged from it, foster care is in poor shape
4. the adoption process is in bad shape (it cost $30,000 to adopt an infant......many people wanting to adopt older kids are run off, etc...)
5. people don't know what they are getting into
6. social services is more punitive to families that adopt then to bio-families----

What can you know about some one from paper work???
I was reading one of my student's IEP Friday and I was thinking this does not really tell a thing about him it said stuff like "he is learning to be cooperative with hand over hand activities" what this really meant was he scratches and bites the entire time you try to feed him and he can't/won't feed himself, "he is working on timed toilet training" translation he is 14 and will be in diapers his whole life, but we put him on the toilet to make mom happy

Some of my son's paper work said things like---- 11 year old foster brother (did share same room and was on theraputic level of care) reportedly gave "bad touches" to other children in home, social worker reports this to be unlikely and after 5th report finally moves 11 year old to home where he will not be "tempted"
But they never said my son as a 7 year old was molested by the 11 and 14 year olds he was sharing a room with

Heck, when I was a foster parent they could not even get ages right. My daughter was 4 1/2 when I got her my other one was 17 months. The kept saying, even 3 years later at adoption time that they were 9 months apart...... that they entered my home at ages 20 and 29 months, (Sarah was really small for her age due to being starved, etc... but still they had her birth records)

[blc_822]

I agree with everything you said. I run an alternative program and also think most paperwork can be read a number of different ways. However, when you said, What can you know about someone from paperwork? I have to say there are some things that would make me sit up and take extra notice should I see them. For instance, had my son's workers mentioned anywhere in any way that he had been repeatedly molested over the years, both in the bio home and in more than one foster home, I could have then asked the question "Has he ever received appropriate treatment?" Then when they told me he had never received any treatment at all, I could have made a more educated decision as to just how carefully this kid had to be monitored around my grandchildren.

I am known for taking the most difficult kids, but I still have a right not to take a serial rapist into my home...And to be informed of his true past so I can make thake decision. We're not talking here about kids "playing doctor". We're talking about violent, forced sex with no remorse.

[Graham]

Rindava and blc,
While I empathize with you both, and mom-of-many and others in the same parenting role, I ask you to consider that there are really two separate issues here. On the one hand is the culpable and deliberate hiding of known facts (about behavior, genetic predisposition or events in the child's past), and on the other is a failure to put two and two together during the ongoing assessment of the child. The first should, by now, be a thing of the past, or at least quite rare. Adoption workers and administrators now know that full disclosure makes for a healthier adoption in both the short and long term. The days of concealing "uncomfortable" information (such as the fact that conception was by rape or incest, or that a corporal punishment event had happened to the child in one of the agency's foster families, or that a birth parent has a criminal record of violence) is thankfully over. Even though such concealment was often done with the best interests of the child and family firmly in mind, several jurisdictions were successfully taken to task by huge out-of-court settlements (six figures and up). Of course there were also cases where workers believed that a child's right to a permanent family exceeded the family's right to disclosure when the information might scare a family off. The logical conclusion to such thoughts, that scaring that family off might well be the right thing to have happen, was sometimes never reached and bad matches were the result.

Much more worrying for adopting parents should be the lack of depth of assessment of the child prior to adoptive placement. Whether the quality of assessment is effected by inexperience of the social worker or agency, by theoretical perspective or allegience, or simply by an "ignorance is bliss" anomoly, the cost to adoptive families is great, as many posters on this board can, and do, attest. In adoption, the match is equaled in importance only by the commitment. Without thorough and informed, assessment conducted over time there will inevitably be mistakes in the match. Assessments should always be performed by more than one person, should include the input of all known caretakers of the child, including the birth family if possible, and should be reviewed by a team with proven skill in assessment work. For a prospective family, always take the paperwork to an independent child psychologist for review. Its worth the couple hundred bucks and its a full tax credit anyway. Ask him/her and yourselves, "Does what they say about this child make sense, and what is missing that we need to know?"
Graham

[lucyjoy]

"The first should, by now, be a thing of the past, or at least quite rare. Adoption workers and administrators now know that full disclosure makes for a healthier adoption in both the short and long term. "

While this should be the case, it still often isn't. Some of it is due to lack of appropriate training for social workers. The support groups in our area have gone out of their way to train the social services workers about attachment and adoption related issues and the importance of accurate information. They are still hitting up the international agencies to properly educate parents regarding post institutionalized children and their parenting needs.

Many communities are still uneducated and don't want to be educated even though research shows it would be best.

[Graham]

Lucyjoy, if you know of agencies who still think that way you need to write a formal letter to their governing body. Its simply inexcusable for professionals in practice to ignore their own professions established body of knowledge. and standards of practice.
Graham

[lucyjoy]

I'm working on it, everytime I find one it shocks that they're that far backwards.