Since I’m an advocate for special needs adoption I have my favorite web sites that check on almost everyday. Not that I’m considering more children, but I know people who are, so I like to keep updated on who’s available. When my husband and I were looking for an infant girl to adopt we registered with several agencies that place special needs. One of those agencies we registered with is a nonprofit organization called CHASK,

Lately, I’ve noticed a disturbing pattern with their page for waiting children. It seems to have become a place where adoptive parents with International children try to re-home them with a different family. I have to wonder if these adoptive parents were sadly misled about the special needs of their children before the adoption took place. If they knew about the special needs of their children, before they adopted, were they offered any training on how to deal with their special needs.

So many new foster parents think they can fix any child with just enough love. Sadly, that just isn’t true. Some of these children are just too emotionally damaged to learn to love, especially an adult. However foster parents must go through many hours of training each year to learn coping skills to deal with these behaviors. Not only that but the foster parents are paid, albeit not enough, but they are compensated. If you adopt a special needs child, that is a state ward and fits the criteria set by the state, you are paid a monthly subsidy to help with counseling, respite care and damage.

It should be obvious that children raised in an overburdened, understaffed orphanage are going to have severe attachment problems as well as learning difficulties caused by a lack of stimulation and love. People are paying a lot of money to adopt children internationally and then have no support or training to cope with the acting out. Granted these children are living in horrific conditions and need to be rescued, so what is a solution.

I know several agencies here that will not consider placing U.S. special needs, older children with a family until they complete training. They also prefer that the family do some foster care first, so they can make an informed decision and figure out if it is right for their family. This is done in order to help prevent disrupted adoptions a few years down the road because continuity is so important to damaged children. I can’t help but wonder if these agencies doing the international adoptions of older children need to get on board with this thinking. I realize the adoptive families are gung-ho about their choice to provide an international child with a “real” family, love and all the extras that go with being an American citizen but they need to be prepared. What service has the agency provided to a child by bringing them to America to be passed around every few years between unprepared families until they finally become dysfunctional adults?

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