Dave Thomas, founder of the Wendy's fast-food chain, had a dream of seeing every child in the United States foster care system placed in a loving home. To help that goal become a reality, he started the Dave Thomas Foundation and its signature program - Wendy's Wonderful Kids.

"Wendy's restaurants, their customers and other partners raise funds for the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption. The Foundation awards grants to local adoption organizations to hire recruiters to execute aggressive child-focused recruitment programs targeted exclusively on placing foster care children with adoptive families."

Wendy's Wonderful Kids started with just seven recruiters in seven states. Today, it boasts more than 87 recruiters in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Canada who have helped place over 1,000 kids into permanent homes. Read more at DaveThomasFoundationForAdoption.com.

Labels: support, foster_care, services

This forum is a great place to post your adoptive family group's meeting dates and times, to find other families interested in joining or starting a group in your area, or to share tips for making adoptive family groups successful and fun. Visit the forum.

Labels: support, adoptive_families, forums

The sponsor of the bill says it's a common-sense measure to help children of single parents. Focus on the Family says the bill is a back-door effort to legalize adoption by gay couples. Read more online.

Labels: legislation, adoption rights, parents

Adoptive parent Mark Schneider wrote a tender story for his two children to help introduce to them the concept of adoption in the most loving way possible while avoiding the use of loaded terms. You are invited to read "You Came from My Heart" along with your child, and we thank Mark and his family for allowing us to reprint this story in its entirety. Read more online.

Labels: communication, parents

Read one womens journey through the adoption process at http://russianbrown.blogspot.com.

Labels: international, support, adoptive_families

When Kim Wendel and Dustin Bugg boarded an Air Ethiopia flight on August 30, 2006 in Washington, D.C., they knew that although it was a round-trip flight, they'd never return to the life they'd known. Instead of a married couple, they'd be coming home a family, parents of a two-year-old boy named Brehanu whom they knew only through the photographs and written descriptions in his adoption file. Read more from The Hook.

Labels: international, inter-country_adoption

Older children who have been in foster care often are overlooked by those considering adoption, but a display by the Adoption Coalition of Texas showcasing photographs of children in need of a permanent home is intended to help change that. Learn more online.

Labels: teens, advocacy, adoptive_families

A Minnesota based youth advocacy team helped lead a day-long retreat in Eau Claire designed to empower local fostered and adopted youth to speak out and make their voices heard. Read more online.

Labels: advocacy, foster_care, retreat

On the University of Georgia  Athens campus, a group has begun mentoring Asian adoptees, helping them learn and understand more about the countries in which they were born. The Asian Children Mentoring Program (ACMP) pairs an Asian university student with an adopted child from a local Athens family.

"In addition to providing mentors, the organization sponsors one community-based cultural event for the children each semester. Last semester, the organization sponsored an Autumn Moon Festival including crafts, storytelling and traditional food for the children."

The ACMP currently has about 20 members, and became an official school organization in November of last year. Read more at RedandBlack.com.

Labels: mentors, adoptees, cultures

The Central Adoption Resource Agency Chairman J.K. Mittal says the Indian government has plans to ease the rules governing adoption of Indian children by people in other countries.

"He said India's adoption laws are very complicated and lengthy and often discourage foreigners from adopting children here."

The current process requires foreigners who which to adopt an Indian child to be sponsored by a licensed agency in their country that is also able to work in India. Currently, direct adoption of Indian children by foreigners is strictly prohibited, which likely accounts for the sharp drop in inter-country adoptions, from 1,298 in 2001 to just 853 in 2006. Read more at TheHindu.com.

Labels: international, laws, rules

In Kentucky, the Safe Infant Act has resulted in the adoption of nine babies over the last several years that may have otherwise been abandoned by their birth mothers. The Safe Infant Act allows parents to safely surrender babies who are up to 72 hours old. They can be taken to any hospital, EMS personnel, firefighter or police officer.

"The primary goal of the law is to keep babies from being abandoned with no one even knowing about it... Women who have hidden a pregnancy may be frightened, but they can ensure their baby will be safe and they can protect themselves with this law."

A parent who willingly surrenders a baby is given medical disclosure forms that will help determine the future needs of the child. After 30 days, parental rights are terminated, and the babies can then be adopted.

Read more at EMaxHealth.com.

Labels: abandonment, parental_rights, unwanted_pregancy

Stacie Cahill's daughter Chelsea knew from a young age that she had been adopted. But when she started attending first grade, her classmates didn't understand adoption and most of them thought it was a negative thing.

"As a psychotherapist, Cahill was aware of the need for resources for families dealing with such issues, so she began to work on a book called 'Who Am I?' about an adopted child's concern about her identity."

Chelsea took the book to school and shared it with her classmates. Now they understand adoption better. Cahill also wrote a book called "I Know Who I Am", dedicated to her second adopted child  Brooklynn, and one called "My Parents Love Me Too" for biological children. Read more at CommunityPress.com.

Labels: support, identity, in_school

Last month, the U.S. State Department issued a warning that "strongly" cautioned Americans to "carefully consider their options" before adopting children from Guatemala. This week, the State Department has issued a stronger warning, urging Americans not to adopt children from the Central American Nation.

"'We cannot recommend adoption from Guatemala at this time,' the agency said. 'There are serious problems with the adoption process in Guatemala, which does not protect all children, birth mothers or prospective adoptive parents.'"

Concerns include a lack of government oversight in the adoption process and an unregulated foster care system. Read more at ChicagoTribune.com.

Labels: international, state_department, warnings

The psychological effects of adoption are very real, and sometimes go unnoticed and untreated. Not only is the child affected, but the parents, and other family members and friends as well. The issues and challenges are rarely extreme, but they do exist, and better prepared you are to handle those challenges, the more quickly you and your family can move through them.

"Timely intervention by a professional skilled in adoption issues often can prevent issues common to adoption from becoming more serious problems that might be more difficult to resolve."

Some families will build a relationship with an adoption specialist over several years, while others only need the help once or twice. The frequency is less important than the quality of the person with whom you're meeting. Read more at AmericanAdoption.com.

Labels: adoption professionals, psychology, therapy

Krista is 8 years old. In 2003, she was diagnosed with cancer which went untreated by her biological parents. The courts removed Krista from their care and she's been anxiously awaiting adoption ever since. When the day came for her adoption to be finalized, she wasn't strong enough to leave her hospital bed and go to court. So the adoption court was brought to her.

"Dozens of lawyers, court officials, nurses and members of her new family watched as Krista formally became the daughter of her new parents, who want to remain anonymous."

This type of court proceeding was a first for Judge David Freundlich, who said Krista was eager to be adopted and didn't want to have to wait. Read more at LATimes.com.

Labels: court, precedence

The first ever international conference on inter-country adoption began on Sunday in Katmandu. The conference was jointly organized by several Nepal organizations and will be attended by 150 delegates from 15 countries.

"The adoption conference is being held amid growing concern about the illegal activities of agencies working for children in Nepal in the name of facilitating adoption..."

The conference continues through Tuesday. Read more at NepalNews.com.

Labels: international, inter-country_adoption, conference

J. K. Mittal, a New Delhi social worker, has been named Chairman of the country's Central Adoption Resource Agency (CARA).

"CARA is an autonomous body under the Ministry of Women and Child Development, working as the central authority in matters of inter-country adoption. Mittal said that in view of some unfortunate incidents in the recent past, the protection and welfare of children has become important."

Mittal is reviewing current adoption procedures for New Delhi and hopes to make some much-needed changes. Read more online.

Labels: international, welfare, adoption_procedures

Senate bill 140 has recently been passed by the House Health and Welfare committee, and will go to the full House for consideration. It is a revised version of Senate bill 141.

"In the revised legislation, [Kentucky State Rep. Tom] Burch calls for a panel of top state child-protection officials to carefully review every recommendation to terminate parental rights before that recommendation is sent to a judge."

The bill addresses concerns that child in foster care are too quickly removed from their homes and parental rights are too quickly terminated.

Read more online.

Labels: legislation, foster_care

Couples who adopt children spend more time and money on them than biological parents do, according to a new study published in the February 2007 issue of American Sociological Review.

Brian Powell, a sociologist at Indiana University, led a team of researchers who studied 13,000 families with children in first grade. Of that group, 161 were two-parent families had adopted children. They scored high on helping children with homework, being involved in their schools, taking children to religious and cultural activities, reading to them, talking over problems with them, and eating meals together.

At first, the researchers believed that adoptive parents spent more time and money on their children because they were older and wealthier than most biological parents included in their study. However, when they reanalyzed the data with the income levels as a factor, the adoptive parents still scored higher, especially compared to single parent and stepparent families.

Labels: research, parents

An adoption agency in Utah called Focus on Children has been accused of tricking people from the island of Samoa into giving their children up for adoption. The agency then supposedly described the children as "orphans" to potential adoptive families.

"More than 80 children were illegally taken from their families by conspirators working through the Wellsville office of Focus on Children (FOC), according to a federal indictment unsealed Thursday."

The company, its owners, and employees face over 130 counts of fraud including conspiracy and bringing illegal aliens into the United States. Read more at SLTrib.com.

Labels: adoption_agencies, adoptive_familie