"CANADA'S WAITING CHILDREN" PROGRAM FINDS PERMANENT HOMES FOR KIDS(Nov. 23, 2004) The Adoption Council of Canada's program to find families to adopt foster children has had considerable success but there is still a long way to go. Reporting at ACC's Annual General Meeting (Oct. 16, 2004 in Saint John, N.B.), Executive Director Eugénie Doré said, "We are very pleased with our success to date (476 out of 642 children registered with the program have been placed) but considering the staggering number of children still waiting for their "forever families", we continue to be faced with an enormous challenge." That challenge was made clear in ACC's 2002 "Report Card on Adoption": there are over 66,000 Canadian children in foster care. About 22,000 are permanent wards, eligible for adoption, but fewer than 1,700 of them are adopted annually across the country. Thousands of "waiting" children are in foster care and need permanent homes with adoptive families. To find families to adopt these children, ACC set up the Canada's Waiting Children (CWC) program. It has its own web site, "Canada's Waiting Kids", at www.canadaswaitingkids.ca. Statistics for the CWC program show a steady increase in the number of children and families registered, and in the number of children placed. CWC PROGRAM REPORTMs. Doré thanked Nancy Umbach, ACC Program Officer, and Danielle Turgeon, Information Coordinator, for their tireless efforts in running the "Canada's Waiting Children" program. She presented the following statistics, covering January-September 2004.
Registered = all children registered since CWC program start in
October 1997.
HOW PHOTOLISTING WORKSPhotolistings are one way to find families who want to adopt. Photolistings are lists of children available for adoption (usually through public agencies), with photos and descriptions. They may be printed in a book or newspaper, shown on TV or posted at a web site. The Internet is just the latest medium for communicating photolistings to the public. In the adoption field this is one of the techniques of "child-specific recruitment", so-called because it seeks to recruit families to adopt specific children. Experience over the last 40 years in Canada and the U.S. has shown that child-specific recruitment is the most effective, compared to general recruitment and public education. It highlights actual children who personally engage interested families. Underlying all photolistings is the principle that the privacy of the child must be respected. For this reason, last names are never given, the detail in the descriptions is restricted and any contact occurs through an intermediary -- the social worker handling the child's file. Web sites may impose a further level of protection by having visitors register for a password before viewing the photos and descriptions. HOW THE "CANADA'S WAITING KIDS" WEB SITE WORKSAlthough there are many families wanting to adopt, there have never been enough prospective adoptive families coming forward to adopt all the children in foster care who need permanent adoptive families. One reason is that the general public, and prospective adoptive parents, simply don't know about the numbers and kinds of children waiting for families. ACC saw the need to go beyond traditional methods to bridge this knowledge gap. ACC has chosen to use photolistings on the web to try to recruit potential adoptive families since it makes it easy for people to quickly see and read about the children available. It has opened a separate web site devoted to the cause, "Canada's Waiting Kids", www.canadaswaitingkids.ca. Child welfare agencies across Canada send photos and background information about Canadian children in their care who are waiting for adoptive families. ACC posts a selection of these at the Canada's Waiting Kids web site, using only first names. To view the Photo Album at the site visitors must get a password by providing personal information. THE "WAITING CHILDREN"Most children registered with the CWC program are between four and ten years old, but children as young as six months and as old as 15 have been listed. The children are not typical of all children in care. They tend to be more challenging than most Canadian children needing permanent families, because agencies refer them to CWC only when no family can be found for them in their home region. They may have had life experiences which have hampered their physical, emotional and intellectual growth. Some have brothers or sisters who need to be placed with them. Many have had their futures clouded because of prenatal exposure to drugs and alcohol. They all suffer from the biggest handicap of all -- they don't have a permanent family. HOW TO REGISTER AND EXPRESS INTEREST IN A CHILDGo to the web site at www.canadaswaitingkids.ca. To view the Photo Album you need to request a password, by giving your name, address and phone number and some information on your preferences. (It takes about one working day to get a password.) If, after viewing the photo listings, you're interested in finding out about one or more of the children featured, download the Family Information Form (www.canadaswaitingkids.ca/pdf/familyinfo.pdf) which you sign and mail back to ACC, with the registration fee of $25. There is a space on page 3 of the form to enter a child’s ID number, found below the picture on the web site. Once you are registered with the program, you will receive a printed photolisting package with profiles of children available for adoption. ACC will send your expression of interest in a child to the child's agency for follow up. ACC suggests allowing agencies about one month to respond. For more information about the adoption process, or to order the photolisting package, call 1-888-54-ADOPT (1-888-542-3678), or e-mail cwk@canadaswaitingkids.ca. This service is available only to Canadian residents. Families register in the CWC program for $25, and pay an annual renewal fee of $15. In addition many families add a modest donation with their renewal fee, so ACC has started a monthly donation plan, and accepts memorial donations. Visa, Mastercard and American Express cards are accepted. For more on how the program works, and on the role of social workers and agencies, see "Guidelines", www.canadaswaitingkids.ca/cwk_guidelines.html. BACKGROUND ON THE CWC PROGRAMACC's "Canada's Waiting Children" program is Canada's only national program using photolistings to present children available for adoption. It has four components:
ABOUT THE ACC AND FUNDINGBased in Ottawa, the Adoption Council of Canada, www.adoption.ca, is a federally chartered, charitable organization which aims to inform and educate Canadians about all aspects of adoption, and encourage the adoption of children needing permanent homes. One of ACC's long-standing goals has been to recruit adoptive families for waiting children across Canada. In 1997, six years after becoming incorporated, ACC earned a grant from the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption (www.davethomasfoundationforadoption.org) and Wendy's Restaurants of Canada, which made the Canada's Waiting Children program possible. Thanks to their ongoing support, ACC has been able to devote considerably more time and effort to finding families for Canadian children without a permanent home. At the end of 2002, ACC earned a three-year, $375,000 grant from the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption to continue and enhance the Canada's Waiting Children program. Wendy's Restaurants of Canada has also renewed its pledge to support ACC's work. The Dave Thomas Foundation continues to generously fund the CWC program, allotting $120,000 for 2004 Source: Adoption Council of Canada, www.adoption.ca Copyright 2004 Adoption Council of Canada. Reproduction permitted, if credited "Source: Adoption Council of Canada, www.adoption.ca". Please make a request to reprint, so we can track where ACC news items are used. Send your request to acc@adoption.ca. |
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