Adoptions, Disruptions, and Orphanages

There is an article in the New York Times that discusses Adoption, Disruption and Orphanages in Russia in light of what happened recently. It is an incredibly honest article about the struggles that exist even with domestic adoptions ("She said 30,000 children in the last three years inside Russia were sent back to institutions by their adoptive, foster or guardianship families.")

They also realize that orphanages are necessary until the underlying issues are addressed ("But the system’s defenders said that until the government figures out how to cut down on social problems like drug and alcohol abuse to improve family life, there is no alternative.")

It also addresses the ugly fact that orphanages are good for their economy and therefore there isn't as much incentive to keep families together ("The Russian government spends roughly $3 billion annually on orphanages and similar facilities, creating a system that is an important source of jobs and money on the regional level — and a target for corruption. ")

It addresses alot of the issues we have been discussing here with the exception of the adoptive parent preparation. That is actually discussed on the blog where I originally found out about the article

I agree that adoptive parents need to be better educated about the issues surrounding adoption and not just older child adoption. Though Hague attempts to do this with the 10hr training requirement, I don't believe it really hits the mark. Some agencies/social workers do a good job of this - others don't. I'm not sure how to solve this problem.

We were instructed to complete the Hague training at Adoption Learning Partners (working on it), but I am also reading LOTS of blogs from real families with real issues as well as other books on the issues we can expect to face. I'll admit that I thought I was prepared to bring our DD home at 28mo and understood many of the issues, but looking back, I now realize I didn't know half of what I needed to know. So, I go into this adoption (of a 9 yr old) knowing that I won't know everything that I need to know, but also knowing a lot better of where to turn to find out the answers.