A coalition of NYC lawyers and advocates has proposed a new bill, Preserving Family Bonds, which would give New York City family court judges the power to order contact between adopted children and their biological families after the termination of parental rights (TPR). Right now, biological parents and children have no legal rights to see each other after a TPR if the adoptive parent doesn’t want it, even if a judge believes it’s in the … Read More
Posts Tagged: Adoption
Mothers share post-adoption grief
May 23, 2017 by
The grief parents suffer when they lose children to foster care and adoption is “invisible and often goes unacknowledged,” explains Toronto-based social worker Kathleen Kenny and parent advocate Sheryl Jarvis, who run a 15-week support group for women who use drugs and have experienced having one or more children removed or adopted.
Q: How would you compare the grief of a parent who loses a child to adoption to a parent whose child dies?
Jarvis: When a child … Read More
Parents working together after adoption
May 22, 2017 by
Once it’s clear that a child is going to be adopted, it can be extremely hard for biological and adoptive parents to maintain a relationship with each other. But without it, children can be forced to choose between two families.
Sarah Gerstenzang, an adoptive parent, and co-founder of the Adoption Foster Care Therapist Network says there are steps both sides can take.
•Adoptive parents can speak to a therapist with the child about what kind of relationship … Read More
KinGap – An alternative to adoption
May 19, 2017 by
Guardianship by family members—called KinGap in New York City—is an option instead of adoption. Here, Julie Farber, deputy commissioner of Family Permanency Services at NYC’s Administration for Children’s Services, explains KinGap:
The Kinship Guardianship Assistance Program, or KinGap, is designed to help a child in foster care achieve a permanent home with a relative. The key difference from adoption is that the biological parent’s rights aren’t terminated and the child isn’t adopted, but the relative still … Read More
Adoption kept our family together
May 18, 2017 by
I will never forget the night I received a call from my daughter, frantic and crying, “They took my kids, Ma. I don’t know where they took them.”
“Who?”
“ACS and the police.”
My granddaughters were 14 months and 3 at the time. I imagined the police and the worker snatching the girls from their mother. I imagined my daughter frantic, not wanting to let go. Then, off into the night they went.
NOT JUST GRAMMY
At that moment I … Read More