What are the actual needs

[erin74]

Ok,

So dh and I have been researching a lot.

Adoption in Australia is not a great demand thing. There are loads of parents who would love to adopt, but in our state it's only a few kids a year, so there is not a need there. So far we are beginning to get the feel that it is the same for long-term fostering. I do not feel that I am well suited for short term fostering, but it seems that there are a lot of families that are keen to do this.

So we have been looking at international adoption. The thing we are finding hard to work out though is what are the needs. It is very easy to get information on how to go about adopting from a country like China, but not actually what the real needs are. Are there more families wanting to adopt internationally than children needing families? This is something we just can't work out.

We don't want to adopt children and in doing so prevent a family who can't have children from adopting. We want to adopt where there is a need that isn't being filled. Where children are going to grow up in institutions if families don't come forward.

From what I am seeing there is a growing rate of international adoptions, and less kids requireing adoption... but still I can't find any real information.

There is definitely a need for special needs kids, but this is something that I would really struggle with. We live in a country town with very very little services and huge drives to get services. I also know my limitations, and this is not something I feel I can take on by choice. Yes I know things happen to healthy kids to, but that is different to actually choosing to put yourself into that situation.

We are also keen to adopt siblings. We're still not entirely sure about ages either. Our kids are 3 and 16months. We wouldn't adopt til they were both at school at the very least. So we have a lot of time to work this out. I would be really interested to hear what others have researched.

erin

 

[Tabfry]

Sounds like your really thinking about the issues. There are alot of stories-both good and bad- about adoption. My wife and I adopted an 8 year old girl in Russia about 3.5 years ago. We chose international because, much like Australia, there are not near as many children in need of adoption as in other parts of the world. My first piece of advise....pray. Pray that the Lord matches you up with the child(ren) that will fit in your family. Second, research. There are alot of informational web-sites that talk about cost, requirements, and so on. Remember that the cost will turn out to cost you more than you anticipate. Read about attachment disorders.

I have more thoughts and ideas that I can offer based on my experience, but I'm not sure how much you want me to get into it now...Sounds like your fishing for some info though. If you have some specifics you want my opinion on, feel free to ask.

 

[erin74]

Part of it is working out which countries our state has links with. At the moment the most promising seem to be the Philippines and Ethiopia - Ethiopia certainly would be the more 'needy' of the two from what I can tell. I have joined a whole stack of yahoo groups to find out more. The reason we are looking at those two is the sibling thing partly. I just hate the idea of siblings being split up. Plus given we live in the country it woudl seem that kids do better when there is someone else from their own background in the family, especially when there are other kids in teh family.

I'd love to hear more of your experiences though.

erin

 

[bliz]

Well, that works out well because siblings are the hardest kids to place. People are very hesitant to adopt two or three (or more) kids. Prospective parents are concerned about multiple kids new to the family all at once, concerned that their personal bond will prevent them from forming new bonds with parents and new sibs. These kids often end up as foster kids, seperated from their siblings, especially the older ones who have the clearest memories of how it is they ended up in the system in the first place.

 

[PurpleMD]

All countries which allow international adoption need those kids to be placed. There are far more children who need adoption throughout the world than families willing to adopt them.

No matter where you choose to adopt, you will not be "depriving" anyone who truly wants to adopt.

 

[erin74]

Yeah I'm starting to get that picture too. I do still have concerns for the well being of a child from a different nation being brought up so isolated from anyone else from their cultural background. I have read of how kids in the past have struggled with not feeling like they belong anywhere - they are different from their family, and they are different from people from their own cultural background. But we are still researching at the moment. We want to see what kind of support structures may be in place by the time we get around to all this. I think a lot of the research for this kind of problem has been done from past experiences, and there are now responses being made in light of that. So I'll be interested to see what people are saying in a few years time as more children come of age and deal with these kinds of issues.....