How many singles seek to adopt?

 

  1. •According to the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, 33% of children adoption from Foster Care is by a single parent (U.S. DHHS, 2000).

  2. •Research in the 1970s found that an estimated .5% to 4% of persons completing adoptions were single. Studies in the 1980s found from 8% to 34% of adopters were single. (Stolley, 1993)

  3. •Across the country the number of single parent placements slowly and steadily continues toincrease, both in domestic and intercountry adoption.(Feigelman and Silverman, 1993)

 

who are they?

  1. •Most single adoptive parents are female, are most likely to adopt older children than infants, and are less likely to have been a foster parent to the adopted child (Stolley, 1993)

  2. •Single parent applicants are self-selective. Most applicants have high levels of emotional maturity and high capacity for frustration, and are independent but linked to a supportive network of relatives. (Branham, 1970)

  3. •As a group, the single parent adopters of U.S. children tended to adopt “special needs” children who were older, minority, and/or handicapped children. (Feigelman and Silverman, 1997)

 

what research has been conducted?

  1. •In a study undertaken by the Los Angeles Department of Adoptions, researchers found that single parents tended to havemore difficulties in completing their adoptions. Thirty-nine percent had made three or more previous attempts to adopt, compared to only 18 percent among the couples. (Feigelman and Silverman, 1997)

  2. •In 1983, Feigelman and Silverman recontacted 60% of the single-parent respondents from their earlier study in 1977. Six years after the initial study, the adjustment of children raised by single parents remained similar to that of children raised by adoptive couples. (Groze and Rosenthal, 1991)

  3. •Groze and Rosenthal conducted a study that reports on the responses from parents in three midwestern states who had finalized their adoption of a special-needs child before 1988. The sample included 122 single-parents and 651 two-parent families. Researchers found that comparisons of single-parent homes to two-parent homes showed that children in single-parent families experienced fewer problems. (Groze and Rosenthal, 1991)

  4. •In the same study, research found that single-parent families were more likely than two-parent families to evaluate the adoption’s impact as being very positive. (Groze and Rosenthal, 1991)

 

bibliography

Branham, E. (1970). One-parent adoptions. Children, 17(3), 103-107.

Feigelman, W. and Silverman, A.R. (1997). Single parent adoption. In:The Handbook for Single Adoptive Parents, Chevy Chase, MD: National Council for Single Adoptive Parents. 123-129.

Groze, V.K. and Rosenthal, J.A. (1991). Single parents and their adopted children: a psychosocial analysis. The Journal of Contemporary Human Services, 130-139.

Stolley, K.S. (1993). Statistics on adoption in the United States. The Future of Children: Adoption, 3(1), 26-42.

Credits: Child Welfare Information Gateway (http://www.childwelfare.gov)

http://statistics.adoption.com/information/adoption-statistics-single-parents.html

in Adoption  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Adoption Terminology

Whether you are a prospective biological parent or prospective adoptive parent exploring adoption, you will encounter many terms with which you may not be familiar.  We have set forth below some of the more frequently used adoption terminology.  We have also included “positive” adoption language so that in the event you choose adoption, you will help to reinforce right from the beginning that adoption is a loving choice for biological parents and an acceptable way for adoptive parent to create their family.

TERMS
Adoptee – A person who joins a family by adoption.

Adoption – A permanent, legally binding arrangement whereby persons other than the biological parents parent the child.

Adoption Agency – An organization that is licensed by a particular state to educate and prepare families to adopt children and to do all the necessary legal, administrative and social work to ensure that adoptions are in the best interests of the children.

Adoption Order – The document issued by the court upon finalization of an adoption, stating that the adoptee is the legal child of the adoptive parents.

Adoption Plan – The unique, individual plan a particular set of biological parents makes for the adoption of their child.

Adoptive Parent(s) – A person or persons who become the permanent parents with all the social, legal rights and responsibilities incumbent upon any parent.

Birth certificate – When a child is born a certified document indicates the birth information of a person including mother’s and father’s name and the name given to the child at the time of birth.  Once the adoption is finalized, the original birth certificate is amended reflecting the adoptive parents as the child’s parents and the original birth certificate is sealed and in many states remains confidential.

Birth father – The biological father of a child.

Birth grandparents – The biological grandparents of a child.

Birth mother – The biological mother of a child who made an adoption plan for the child and subsequently relinquished the child for adoption.

Birth parents – The parents who conceived a child, made an adoption plan for the child and subsequently relinquished their parental rights to the child and created an adoption plan.   Also referred to as the biological parents.

Confidential Adoption – An adoption where there is no contact between biological parents and adoptive parents.  Sometimes referred to as a closed adoption.

Domestic Adoption – An adoption that involves adoptive parents and a child that are permanent residents of the United States.

Employer Adoption Benefit Package – Adoption benefits provided to employees as part of an employer-sponsored benefit program, which are included within their employment compensation package.

Facilitator – An individual that is not licensed as an adoption agency or licensed as an attorney, and who is engaged in the matching of biological parents with adoptive parents. 

Finalization – The court hearing that results in the adoption order. This is the moment when the adoptee becomes the permanent, legally adopted child of the adoptive parents. 

Homestudy – A three-part process required before a child can be placed with a family for foster care or adoption: (1) Written portion includes autobiographies, references, medical reports, financial statements, child abuse and criminal clearances and other written materials; (2) Social work process includes a series of visits in the applicants’ home to discuss a variety of issues from the applicants’ backgrounds to their motivations to adopt and their understanding of adoption and parenting; (3) Educational process includes training in adoption and parenting issues. The end result of this process is a written document completed by a licensed agency giving a summary of the applicants’ family life. This document indicates approval of the applicants for adoption. In most states it must be updated annually.

Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children (ICPC) – If a child is born in a state other than where the prospective adoptive parents reside, the Interstate Compact of both the baby’s home state and the prospective adoptive parents’ home state must give their approval before the child travels (for the purpose of adoption) to the state where the prospective adoptive parents reside. In an interstate adoption, the agency with custody of the child is responsible for processing the interstate paperwork.

Match or Matching – The process of bringing together qualified prospective adoptive parents and willing biological parents, who by choice choose to explore the compatibility of each other and who can agree on the terms under which the adoptive parents can adopt the child. 

Open Adoption – An open adoption is full disclosure of identifying information between the biological parents and the adoptive parents. Both the adoptive parents and biological parents agree upon the amount of contact following the placement of the child.

Placement – A term used to describe the point in time when the child comes to live with the adoptive parents in their home.

Revocation of Consent – When a biological parent revokes the consent they had signed to an adoption and requests that the child be returned to his/her custody.

Semi-Open Adoption – A semi-open adoption occurs when the potential biological mother or biological families experience non-identifying interaction with the adoptive family. In most cases, the interaction is facilitated by a third party who is usually an adoption agency or adoption attorney.

Surrender – The legal document signed by the biological parents in which they place their child with an adoption agency who in turn places the child with the adoptive family that the biological parents choose.

Tax Credit (Adoption) – A tax credit for qualifying expenses paid to adopt an eligible child. The adoption credit is an amount subtracted from the adoptive parents’ tax liability.

in Adoption  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Support Same Sex Marriage Equality

As many of you know or may not know. There is a huge battle being fought by Gay America against Proposition 8. It is so important to educate yourself on what you can do to help and what outlets exist.
Some great websites exist.
One being www.hrc.org they have alot of helpful information.
I also recently discovered this website http:/equalityvideos.org
If you have a moment please check it out, there are so many inspiring videos. You can also upload your own story.
Remember do the right thing, talk about, pass it on and take action.
Until next time.

in Uncategorized  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

At Last, Facing Down Bullies (and Their Enablers)

June 9, 2009
18 and Under
New York Times – By PERRI KLASS, M.D.

 

Back in the 1990s, I did a physical on a boy in fifth or sixth grade at a Boston public school. I asked him his favorite subject: definitely science; he had won a prize in a science fair, and was to go on and compete in a multischool fair.

The problem was, there were some kids at school who were picking on him every day about winning the science fair; he was getting teased and jostled and even, occasionally, beaten up. His mother shook her head and wondered aloud whether life would be easier if he just let the science fair thing drop.

Bullying elicits strong and highly personal reactions; I remember my own sense of outrage and identification. Here was a highly intelligent child, a lover of science, possibly a future (fill in your favorite genius), tormented by brutes. Here’s what I did for my patient: I advised his mother to call the teacher and complain, and I encouraged him to pursue his love of science.

And here are three things I now know I should have done: I didn’t tell the mother that bullying can be prevented, and that it’s up to the school. I didn’t call the principal or suggest that the mother do so. And I didn’t give even a moment’s thought to the bullies, and what their lifetime prognosis might be.

In recent years, pediatricians and researchers in this country have been giving bullies and their victims the attention they have long deserved — and have long received in Europe. We’ve gotten past the “kids will be kids” notion that bullying is a normal part of childhood or the prelude to a successful life strategy. Research has described long-term risks — not just to victims, who may be more likely than their peers to experience depression and suicidal thoughts, but to the bullies themselves, who are less likely to finish school or hold down a job.

Next month, the American Academy of Pediatrics will publish the new version of an official policy statement on the pediatrician’s role in preventing youth violence. For the first time, it will have a section on bullying — including a recommendation that schools adopt a prevention model developed by Dan Olweus, a research professor of psychology at the University of Bergen, Norway, who first began studying the phenomenon of school bullying in Scandinavia in the 1970s. The programs, he said, “work at the school level and the classroom level and at the individual level; they combine preventive programs and directly addressing children who are involved or identified as bullies or victims or both.”

Dr. Robert Sege, chief of ambulatory pediatrics at Boston Medical Center and a lead author of the new policy statement, says the Olweus approach focuses attention on the largest group of children, the bystanders. “Olweus’s genius,” he said, “is that he manages to turn the school situation around so the other kids realize that the bully is someone who has a problem managing his or her behavior, and the victim is someone they can protect.”

The other lead author, Dr. Joseph Wright, senior vice president at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington and the chairman of the pediatrics academy’s committee on violence prevention, notes that a quarter of all children report that they have been involved in bullying, either as bullies or as victims. Protecting children from intentional injury is a central task of pediatricians, he said, and “bullying prevention is a subset of that activity.”

By definition, bullying involves repetition; a child is repeatedly the target of taunts or physical attacks — or, in the case of so-called indirect bullying (more common among girls), rumors and social exclusion. For a successful anti-bullying program, the school needs to survey the children and find out the details — where it happens, when it happens.

Structural changes can address those vulnerable places — the out-of-sight corner of the playground, the entrance hallway at dismissal time.

Then, Dr. Sege said, “activating the bystanders” means changing the culture of the school; through class discussions, parent meetings and consistent responses to every incident, the school must put out the message that bullying will not be tolerated.

So what should I ask at a checkup? How’s school, who are your friends, what do you usually do at recess? It’s important to open the door, especially with children in the most likely age groups, so that victims and bystanders won’t be afraid to speak up. Parents of these children need to be encouraged to demand that schools take action, and pediatricians probably need to be ready to talk to the principal. And we need to follow up with the children to make sure the situation gets better, and to check in on their emotional health and get them help if they need it.

How about helping the bullies, who are, after all, also pediatric patients? Some experts worry that schools simply suspend or expel the offenders without paying attention to helping them and their families learn to function in a different way.

“Zero-tolerance policies that school districts have are basically pushing the debt forward,” Dr. Sege said. “We need to be more sophisticated.”

The way we understand bullying has changed, and it’s probably going to change even more. (I haven’t even talked about cyberbullying, for example.) But anyone working with children needs to start from the idea that bullying has long-term consequences and that it is preventable.

I would still feel that same anger on my science-fair-winning patient’s behalf, but I would now see his problem as a pediatric issue — and I hope I would be able to offer a little more help, and a little more follow-up, appropriately based in scientific research.

in In the News / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Fla. Bar support in gay adoption case upheld

By The Associated Press

06.04.2009 1:34pm EDT

(Tallahassee, Fl.)  The state Supreme Court has rejected a challenge to the Florida Bar’s right to oppose the state’s ban on gay adoption.

Liberty Counsel, a faith-based legal group, had asked the high court to prohibit the bar’s Family Law Section from filing a friend of the court brief in an appellate court that was considering Florida’s ban of adoptions by homosexuals. The justices ruled 5-2 in the case on Thursday.

The bar brief supported a trial judge’s ruling that declared the ban unconstitutional. That decision is on appeal to the 3rd District Court of Appeal in Miami.

The high court majority ruled Liberty Counsel failed to show the brief violated its constitutional rights or that the bar broke its own rules.

in Adoption / Legal  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

German zoo: Gay penguin pair raising chick


By The Associated Press
06.05.2009 7:00am EDT

(Berlin) A German zoo says a pair of gay male penguins are raising a chick from an egg abandoned by its parents.

Bremerhaven zoo veterinarian Joachim Schoene says the egg was placed in the male penguins’ nest after its parents rejected it in late April. The males incubated it for some 30 days before it hatched and have continued to care for it. The chick’s gender is not yet known.

Schoene said the male birds, named Z and Vielpunkt, are one of three same-sex pairs among the zoo’s 20 Humboldt penguins that have attempted to mate.

Homosexual behavior has been documented in many animal species.

The zoo said in a statement on its Web site Thursday that “sex and coupling in our world don’t always have something to do with reproduction.”

in Family Stories  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

UPDATE: Lynch signs NH marriage bill

By Jennifer Vanasco, editor in chief, 365gay.com

06.03.2009 4:28pm EDT

Gov. John Lynch has signed the New Hampshire equal marriage bill, making New Hampshire the sixth state to have gay marriage. The law will take effect January 1, 2010.

The Senate passed the equal marriage compromise bill this morning; this afternoon, the House passed the bill 198-176.

“With Gov. Lynch signing legislation passed by the state Senate and House, New Hampshire has become the latest state to recognize that loving, committed couples, and their families, should receive equal dignity and respect under the law,” said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese.  “No religious institution will have to recognize any marriage under this law, as the language proposed by Gov. Lynch and agreed to by the legislature made abundantly clear.”

Only Rhode Island is the outlier in New England – the very Catholic state will be a much longer fight, even though a May poll showed that most Rhode Islanders actually favor a gay marriage bill.

Five states—California, New Jersey, Oregon, Nevada (effective October 1, 2009), and Washington (as of July 26, 2009, pending possible repeal effort)—plus Washington, D.C. provide same-sex couples with access to the state level benefits and responsibilities of marriage, through either civil unions or domestic partnerships.
Hawaii provides same-sex couples with limited rights and benefits.  New York recognizes marriages by same-sex couples validly entered into outside of New York.  The New York legislature is considering marriage legislation that would permit same-sex couples to marry in those states, and the D.C. Council has passed legislation that would recognize marriages by same-sex couples legally entered into in other jurisdictions (that legislation is going through a Congressional review period).
Same-sex couples do not receive federal rights and benefits in any state.  HRC has an great interactive map of marriage equality state-by-state.
in In the News  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Becoming Pregnant

We are there…..What can we expect next?

Once you get over the hurdles of an IVF cycle and get the invigorating call, you can begin the emotional rollercaoster of being pregnant. As many say no pregnancy is alike nor are the few extras that come with it.

If you follow our footsteps, the carrier has to continue taking the progesterone shots until 12 weeks and the estrogen pills. You will continue to get monitored by your IVF team until your 12th week where if all looks good you will be turned over to your OBGYN.  At this point it becomes a “normal” pregnancy in the sense where you now follow OB’s instructions and planned sonograms.

You will find yourself having much more sonograms and ultrasounds then if you did it differently but this is just protocol, no need to worry if your heterosexual best friend has only had 3 in total and you are going on your sixth.

I would also recommend that you start your adoption paperwork as soon as you become regnant because it can take a few months to get things rolling.

If you qualify begin your estate planning, there are alot of essential bases you need to do to protect your family.

Wishing every family great success.

I wanted to invite you to ask me any questions that you may have during this type of procedure. I know It is alot of information to receive but Maria and I would be so excited to share our stories with you all .

in Issue Forum / Personal Stories  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Croatia moves to adopt long-awaited IVF law

May 29, 2009 – Googlenews.com

ZAGREB (AFP) — Croatia’s parliament is to review a long-awaited bill on in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) which faced strong opposition from the country’s powerful Catholic Church, a minister said Thursday.

“I believe we have formulated a bill which is acceptable for both the conservative part of Croatia, which forms a majority, and the liberal part,” Health Minister Darko Milinovic told national radio.

According to the draft law to be forwarded to parliament within the next 10 days, infertility treatment would be allowed for married women only, a term that Milinovic labelled as “conservative.”

At the same time, the legislation contains “liberal” provisions allowing egg and sperm donations, the minister added.

Under the new law, a child conceived by a donated egg or sperm would be able to obtain information about his or her biological parents once turning 18.

Such a provision was already condemned by local parents organisation RODA, which warned it could discourage potential donors.

Croatia’s current law on medically assisted reproduction dates back to 1978, when the world’s first “test-tube baby” was born. The former Yugoslav republic had its first IVF baby five years later.

A new bill had been in the offing since the late 1990s but never reached parliament.

Many believe this was due to strong opposition from the Roman Catholic Church which sparked a vivid public debate in 2005 when it condemned IVF as a “crime against human life.”

Medical sources estimate between 2,000 and 3,000 Croatian women suffer from infertility and are potential candidates for IVF treatment.

Due to the high number of failures with the procedure, many attempts are often necessary before a pregnancy succeeds.

in In the News / IVF  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Circle Surrogacy offers seminars in London and Stockholm for gay couples and singles

Mon, 05/11/2009 – 9:31am by Jeff @ proudparenting.com

London and Stockholm seminars are offered in May about USA surrogacy options for gay couples and singles

Circle Surrogacy, one of the oldest and most experienced surrogacy agencies in the USA, is offering private consultations and informational seminars in London and Stockholm this month. The London seminar will be held at 2:30pm on May 16, and it is co-sponsored by Connecticut Fertility Associates. The seminar will feature a presentation by a lesbian surrogate mom from the USA who recently delivered a baby for a London couple, along with expert legal and medical advice, practical tips and contacts for gay and straight couples and singles. A similar seminar will be held in Stockholm on May 20, 6-8pm. Additional seminars and consultations are planned this year in Tel Aviv (June 12, in conjunction with Gay Pride), Montreal, New York, Atlanta and Madrid.

Circle Surrogacy is returning to London and Stockholm after holding six successful informational seminars in Europe and Israel over the last year. This time it will be presenting the innovative surrogacy programs it recently launched, such as “Guaranteed Baby” and more affordable surrogacy options with the use of an Egg Bank and Egg Sharing.

Circle Surrogacy has already helped bring to the world dozens of UK and Swedish babies, with just as many on the way. Many of these families will be attending reunion parties in London (also May 16) and Stockholm (May 19). The agency’s philosophy is to facilitate a circle of families who help create new families. The surrogate mothers who get accepted to Circle’s program are highly motivated to help prospective parents have children, and the agency assures that their spouses are also completely aboard with this endeavor. Circle is unique in its practice of also screening intended parents and making sure that they are willing to treat the egg donors (who sometimes are friends or family members) and surrogate mothers with the full respect and appreciation they deserve. Most of the people working at Circle are either parents through surrogacy, or former surrogates or egg donors themselves.

in Professional Resources / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments