Find me a family…

news source: www.osbornes.net

Naomi Angell  of Osbornes takes us through the adoption process     

Naomi Angell

THE RECENT TV PROGRAMME Find me a Family focussed on the problems in finding adoptive families for the hard to place children in the care system who struggle to find a family to call their own.

The starting point for people thinking of adoption is often a baby or toddler so that they can have the closest experience to bringing up their own child. However there are now very few babies available for adoption, with seismic changes in social attitudes towards unmarried mothers,abortion and family structures.

The programme encouraged families thinking about adopting to look beyond the cute babies or toddlers to the children waiting in the care system to find a family; children with medical problems, sibling groups who should not be separated unless there is no alternative or older children.

Find me a Family also followed three very different types of families: a married couple who had been unable to conceive a much wanted second child after having their first; a single woman; and a male same sex couple.

The Adoption and Children Act 2002, the most up to date Act of Parliament on domestic adoption, introduced the right for gay couples and heterosexual cohabiting couples to adopt. The TV programme followed the families through the adoption process, a system with a reputation for its intrusiveness, capriciousness and length and dispelled some of the myths while explaining others.

The question is often asked why being assessed for adoption has to be so rigorous when having your own baby can happen without thought or planning and does not involve having to answer social workers’ questions about your own childhood experiences and your views about disciplining your future child. What a family will learn in the preparation and assessment process for adoption is that they need to understand themselves and their responses to situations when bringing up a child who has lost its own family.

It is not true that age or weight are automatic bars to adopting. But an adoption agency will need to be satisfied that an adoptive family is of an age and is likely to be in good enough health to bring an adopted child up into adulthood, to minimise the risk of the child suffering a second loss during their childhood.

A family’s application to adopt will go before the adoption agency’s adoption panel. The adoption panel is independent of the adoption agency and includes adopters,adopted adults and a doctor, as well as social workers. They will consider the detailed report prepared by the family’s social worker and make a decision on whether the family is suitable to adopt. The adopters will be able to attend the panel meeting and have a right to an independent review by a national body if they are not satisfied with the decision.

With a positive home study report the search for a child can start. The family’s social worker will work with them in trying to identify the right child for that family. As the TV programme showed, the time this takes can vary greatly. The child’s social worker needs to be sure that the family are right for that child. Where a suitable match is possible, the child’s social worker will meet the adoptive family and give them detailed information on the child’s background and needs. Then the adoption panel will recommend whether there should be a match between the child and if positive, introductions between the child and the adoptive family will begin.

Once the child joins the adoptive family, the adopters will apply to the court for an adoption order. With recent changes in the law this is unlikely to be a difficult process as any opposition by the child’s birth parents to the adoption will have been dealt with by the court before the child was placed with the adopters. If there are unexpected problems in the adoption proceedings, the local authority should pay the adopter’s legal costs for representation. In all, a long journey and not without its challenges, but an opportunity to change the lives of the children waiting for a family to call their own and of the adopters hoping to have a child to make their lives complete, while at the same time giving a future to a child in need.

Naomi Angell specialises in children’s law and has particular expertise in international and domestic adoption,children’s cases with an immigration interface, child protection and alternative reproduction cases, such as surrogacy. She chairs the adoption panel of a national adoption agency and has been closely involved in the parliamentary process of the recent new adoption legislation. She is a Consultant at Osbornes and qualified as a solicitor in 1973. Contact her by email naomiangell@osbornes.net or call 0207681 8687.

Find me a family!

Naomi Angell of Osbornes takes us through the adoption process

THE RECENT TV PROGRAMME Find me a Family focussed on the problems in finding adoptive families for the hard to place children in the care system who struggle to find a family to call their own.

The starting point for people thinking of adoption is often a baby or toddler so that they can have the closest experience to bringing up their own child. However there are now very few babies available for adoption, with seismic changes in social attitudes towards unmarried mothers,abortion and family structures.

The programme encouraged families thinking about adopting to look beyond the cute babies or toddlers to the children waiting in the care system to find a family; children with medical problems, sibling groups who should not be separated unless there is no alternative or older children.

Find me a Family also followed three very different types of families: a married couple who had been unable to conceive a much wanted second child after having their first; a single woman; and a male same sex couple.

The Adoption and Children Act 2002, the most up to date Act of Parliament on domestic adoption, introduced the right for gay couples and heterosexual cohabiting couples to adopt. The TV programme followed the families through the adoption process, a system with a reputation for its intrusiveness, capriciousness and length and dispelled some of the myths while explaining others.

The question is often asked why being assessed for adoption has to be so rigorous when having your own baby can happen without thought or planning and does not involve having to answer social workers’ questions about your own childhood experiences and your views about disciplining your future child. What a family will learn in the preparation and assessment process for adoption is that they need to understand themselves and their responses to situations when bringing up a child who has lost its own family.

It is not true that age or weight are automatic bars to adopting. But an adoption agency will need to be satisfied that an adoptive family is of an age and is likely to be in good enough health to bring an adopted child up into adulthood, to minimise the risk of the child suffering a second loss during their childhood.

A family’s application to adopt will go before the adoption agency’s adoption panel. The adoption panel is independent of the adoption agency and includes adopters,adopted adults and a doctor, as well as social workers. They will consider the detailed report prepared by the family’s social worker and make a decision on whether the family is suitable to adopt. The adopters will be able to attend the panel meeting and have a right to an independent review by a national body if they are not satisfied with the decision.

With a positive home study report the search for a child can start. The family’s social worker will work with them in trying to identify the right child for that family. As the TV programme showed, the time this takes can vary greatly. The child’s social worker needs to be sure that the family are right for that child. Where a suitable match is possible, the child’s social worker will meet the adoptive family and give them detailed information on the child’s background and needs. Then the adoption panel will recommend whether there should be a match between the child and if positive, introductions between the child and the adoptive family will begin.

Once the child joins the adoptive family, the adopters will apply to the court for an adoption order. With recent changes in the law this is unlikely to be a difficult process as any opposition by the child’s birth parents to the adoption will have been dealt with by the court before the child was placed with the adopters. If there are unexpected problems in the adoption proceedings, the local authority should pay the adopter’s legal costs for representation. In all, a long journey and not without its challenges, but an opportunity to change the lives of the children waiting for a family to call their own and of the adopters hoping to have a child to make their lives complete, while at the same time giving a future to a child in need.

Naomi Angell specialises in children’s law and has particular expertise in international and domestic adoption,children’s cases with an immigration interface, child protection and alternative reproduction cases, such as surrogacy. She chairs the adoption panel of a national adoption agency and has been closely involved in the parliamentary process of the recent new adoption legislation. She is a Consultant at Osbornes and qualified as a solicitor in 1973. Contact her by email naomiangell@osbornes.net or call 0207681 8687.

Affordable Adoptions

News Source: ljworld

Do adoptions really cost between $10,000 and $40,000 as stated in a LJW article of February 8? That was a long time ago but life intervened and caused this delayed response.

Well some adoptions are expensive. Adopting a child from abroad or working with an attorney for what is called a private adoption like the one in the film Juno can be very expensive.

Adoption from one of the agencies that have contracts from the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services (SRS) is virtually free according to the adoption coordinator of one of these agencies. She recommends that someone wanting to adopt might want to have a few hundred dollars available for miscellaneous costs. However most of these expenses will ultimately be reimbursed. Her agencies public relations people never got back to me about this piece so I can’t use her name. That is too bad because she does good work.

So there are affordable adoptions in Kansas and nearly 900 children waiting to be adopted. Kansans like citizens of most states provide financial assistance for adoption of children from the child welfare system. Much of this financial help is from federal funds.

Available financial assistance is detailed in Section 6000 of the SRS Policy Manual (http://www.srskansas.org/CFS/robohelp/PPMGenerate/). Examples include reimbursement of non-recurring adoption expenses of up to $2,000. This can be used for such items as attorney’s fees and travel expenses to court hearings. There is reimbursement for one-time only purchases limited to $1,000 per child for things like special equipment for children with disabilities, home modifications to make the house handicapped accessible and lifts for vans if needed.

Health care through Medicaid is available for special needs children. In addition, there is a possibility of a monthly cash subsidy to help meet the costs of providing for the child’s special and ordinary needs. The monthly payments are based upon the needs of the child and the resources of the family and range from $0 to $500 per month.

Not only are these adoptions affordable but they may be the most common type of adoption in the United States. The Children’s Bureau latest report shows that there were 50,379 child welfare adoptions during the 2006 federal fiscal year. While international adoptions are frequently in the press, the number of these pales in comparison. The United States Department of State reports 17,438 International Adoptions in 2008.

In Kansas there were 712 child welfare adoptions during the state’s 2008 fiscal year. 53% of these children were adopted by foster parents. Foster parents have always stepped up and adopted children in their care. Increasingly relatives are coming forward to adopt children in the extended family and they represented 39% of last year’s adoptions.

There is still a great need for families to adoption children through public child welfare. SRS reports that as of 12/31/2008 there were 870 children waiting for adoption. These children have had their parental rights terminated or relinquished and are ready for a new family.

Adoption in Kansas can be inexpensive and is very rewarding. Let’s celebrate those foster parents and relatives who adopt child welfare children and encourage others interested in adoption to call one of the agencies contracting with SRS.

Adoption – New Law and Practice

Adoption – new law and practice -Domestic and Intercountry Adoption

21 March 2007

Intercountry Adoption (ICA) covers all adoptions with a foreign element, where the UK is either the receiving state, or the state of origin and sending state of the child.

Although often regarded as a specialist area of law covering a small number of cases and where practitioners are unlikely to encounter more than a few cases in the course of their career . Also where the ones that you do hear about are high profile cases which appear in the media e.g. Angelina Jolie or Madonna or notorious cases such as the “Internet Twins” case of 2002.

The reality is actually quite different. The cases in fact cover a wide range of situations and a broad spectrum of people, ranging from

• Childless couple wanting to adopt a young unrelated baby from abroad, maybe China or Russia.
• Expatriate single woman who wants to adopt a child while living and working abroad and then wants to bring the child back to the UK for recognition of the adoption and to obtain British nationality for the child.
• Relatives in this country wanting to adopt a child gifted to them by a family member abroad or to adopt an orphaned related child from a foreign country.
• A child brought here for a visit, maybe for education, medical treatment or a visit and relatives or an unrelated family decide to adopt the child.
• An English man marries a foreign woman and wants to adopt her child by a previous relationship abroad and for the child to live as a member of the family in this country.
• A child in care proceedings, where the best placement is a placement with relatives abroad.
• Family members in this country wanting to gift a child for adoption by childless relatives abroad.

The common factor is the foreign element when the UK can either be the
receiving country of the child or the country sending the child abroad where the UK is the child’s country of origin.

It is an area of law relevant to solicitors and barristers advising prospective adopters, and also birth families where the child is to be sent abroad. Also adoption social workers, childrens guardians and local authority legal departments, which are increasingly getting involved in these cases.

For further information contact Amanda Bradley.