CASE:eNewsletter

July/August 2006

In this issue

School Success = Family Success
Parent Perspectives: Adopting An Older Child
Success Stories

For many foster and adoptive parents, helping their child be successful in school not only means giving them a stable and loving home, but also finding out the child's school history and special education needs.

SCHOOL SUCCESS = FAMILY SUCCESS
By Debbie Riley, MS
Executive Director
The Center for Adoption Support & Education

It's common sense that children who are successful at school are more likely to develop solid self-esteem, make positive choices about their behavior, and look forward to their future. School success and positive family relationships often have a reciprocal relationship. However, school presents unique and difficult challenges for children adopted from the child welfare system.

Most people today acknowledge that children in foster care are considered to have "special needs." Often that includes learning, emotional or physical disabilities. In addition, new research is confirming that early trauma and deprivation can affect brain growth and function, impacting potential for learning. Children may have inappropriate behaviors in reaction to the experiences that brought them in to care, or to the common emotions of loss and grief, anger, and uncertainty that stem from being moved from family to family. Those behaviors can be difficult to manage in a school environment.

For some children, lacking a permanent family may mean multiple school placements, making it difficult for teachers to monitor their progress over time. It can be easy for children to fall between the cracks; important time may be lost without critical special education services. Adoptive parents may be unaware of their children's history of school performance, which is so important in identifying learning problems and consequently obtaining special education services. Even if they have raised the children as foster children for some years, they may not understand the complex special education system.

With this understanding, post-adoption support must, at the very least, assist families in obtaining knowledge and skills to advocate for their children's needs at school. Mental health professionals working with adoptive families can help by monitoring both academic and social progress at school, enhancing home-school communication, and assisting parents to help educators understand the individual needs of the child.

What Parents Are Requesting.

"We knew when Matthew was our foster child that he had long-term special education needs," Irene explains, "but some disabilities do not reveal themselves right away. " Matthew's needs were extensive, including ADHD, neurological and visual disabilities, and medical problems, with resulting learning disabilities. He also had a family history of mood disorders, and had a psychiatric hospitalization at the age of 7. Irene feels that their social worker made a "good faith effort" to prepare them for the kinds of services that Matthew would need as he grew up. She feels lucky that she and her husband received excellent training to parent a child with special needs.

However, after adoption, much of that support both financial and otherwise, was greatly reduced or eliminated altogether. On their own, it has taken an enormous amount of time, money and energy to research appropriate programs, determine needs, deal with insurance coverage, obtain screenings, and find specialists. Over several years, Irene and her husband drew on the Internet, community resources, a therapist at C.A S.E., and most importantly, their own perseverance, to become strong advocates for Matthew. They had obtained many services for him through the public school system as well as private practitioners. She describes the process this way: "We were eaten alive. We've had one uphill battle after the other, and I think a lot of people would simply fall by the wayside."

Falling by the wayside has serious implications in adoption. It may mean high family stress, school failure, and possibly even adoptions that are never finalized because families feel overwhelmed. Many parents realize that the need for assistance with their children's special needs will continue long past adoption, and may actually get more challenging as the children grow up. When they learn that post-adoption services are not available to help with school issues, it may cause second thoughts about adoption.

"I never considered not adopting Matthew," says Irene, but she acknowledges that one social worker warned her early on that it would be better to keep him in foster care, where more services and financial supports are available to address children's special needs. "Wouldn't it be better to provide ongoing support to address children's special needs, rather than have a failed adoption - or no adoption at all?" she wonders.

In a broad review of post-adoption needs and programs, noted researcher Richard Barth and colleagues at the University of North Carolina found that "School problems are consistently rated as the most significant concern for adoptive families. "Parents ask frequently for support to help them understand and access the special education system.

In surveys of adoptive parents across the country, school is named as a common family stressor. Irene found that her ability to maintain her job was threatened by frequent school conferences and the threat of suspension. "You have layers of stress - the kid, other children in the family, your job, your marriage. It's enormous."

These requests for assistance to help their children succeed in school must not be ignored by social workers and adoption professionals working to ensure permanency and the well-being of adoptive families. Irene's wish list: psychologists who would complete full evaluations of children with plans for adoption, so parents would have both knowledge about their children as well as valuable data to present to schools; lists of babysitters in the community who are capable of caring for children with complex special needs; a stipend or system to allow specialists to attend school meetings when requesting services; and counseling for parents weathering the stresses of raising the children. She suggested that perhaps a pro bono system of professionals and service providers could be set up to provide such services, with a group such as C.A.S.E. being the umbrella under which they are maintained and referred.

Making School Successful: Tasks for Parents

Adoptive parents are often adept at seeking resources and obtaining services, having navigated both the child welfare and legal systems to become parents in the first place. These skills translate well to tackling the rules and regulations of the special education system.

To obtain appropriate special education services, all parents need to feel that they are partners with the educators who are making decisions about their children's needs. Parents are experts on how their children's needs are impacting their lives. They need to become knowledgeable about their children's identified disabilities, basics of the federal law (IDEA) that provides for special education services, and details about required meetings, evaluations and procedures that apply to their situation.

After placement in a special education program, an important component of ensuring success is that parents remain a consistent monitor of their children's progress. (Is this program helping him? Does his Individual Education Plan - the IEP- have appropriate goals and objectives that will clearly measure his progress?)

Parents also need to be cognizant of how to include behavior goals and results of a Functional Behavior Assessments in the IEP, regulations regarding suspension of students in special education, and additional services that may be available to address emotional issues.

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At The Center for Adoption Support and Education (C.A.S.E.), we treat many adopted children, teens and their families who present school-related concerns. Our therapists are knowledgeable in the areas of school advocacy and special education and highly experienced in helping families to identify strategies for successful intervention. Through our counseling and assessment services, we strive to promote school success for every student.

For those cases that are more complex in presentation, C.A.S.E. has teamed with William R. Stixrud, Ph.D. and Associates L.L.C. to provide the Adoption Sensitive Evaluation and Support Services (A.S.E.S.S.) program. Comprised of a neuropsychological evaluation and a clinical exam, this evaluation provides a comprehensive and integrated picture of your child's learning, behavioral and emotional strengths and weaknesses. Recommendations include strategies for development in these areas and follow-up services for continued support.

For more information or to schedule an appointment, please contact Valerie Kunsman at 301-476-8525 or email us at caseadopt@adoptionsupport.org.

Parent Perspectives: A SPECIAL KIND OF ADOPTION: ADOPTING OLDER CHILDREN
By Ellen Singer, LCSW-C
The Center for Adoption Support and Education

There are many reasons why prospective parents choose to adopt children who are older (defined as typically three and up.) For some it is their own age - because they are "older parents" - either first-time parents, or having already raised biological/adopted children, it makes sense to them to parent older children. Marla, 47 mother of two adopted children, ages 8 and 10 says, "I didn't want to have children in college when I'm getting ready to retire!" For others, there's a feeling of wanting to provide a home for a child who really needs one. "Everyone wants babies," says, Rebecca. "We felt that older children are sometimes forgotten. They need good homes, too!" For others, caring for infants and young children is either not that appealing or doesn't feel practical. "Doug, Rebecca's husband says, "My wife and I work full-time and have no family in the area to help out. We felt that an older child would fit more easily into our lives."

Whatever the motivation, the decision to adopt older children must come after careful consideration ( KNOW THYSELF!) and education as to both the many rewards as well as the challenges involved. Older children come with histories - whether having lived in foster care, orphanages, or with birth family. Their pre-adoptive experiences may leave them with unresolved emotional issues. Such issues include significant loss - of birth family, possibly including siblings, previous caregivers, and sometimes - culture, religion, etc. In addition, some children may have experienced trauma - physical, emotional, sexual abuse; neglect, witnessing violence, substance abuse, parental psychiatric disturbance, etc.

Walking in the Child's Shoes

All adopted children need help to grieve the losses they have experienced. Placed in permanent families where they experience their new parents' commitment and loving support, they are often able to address their issues. Empathetic listening, compassion, and patience from their parents can help them further develop the resiliency they already have that enabled them to survive difficult life experiences.

Parenting older children is therefore a very special and important job. Key to the success of older adoptive placements is preparation, according to Madeleine Krebs, Clinical Coordinator at CASE. She notes, "Both the parents' and the child's expectations need to be carefully explored and adjusted for what the realities are likely to be. For example, a child coming from an orphanage may never have lived in a family and therefore may have no idea as to how a family functions. Having experienced multiple caregivers, he may have no model for being able to understand what a "Mom or Dad" is. On a practical level, for example, he may never have ridden in a car with a seatbelt, or been to a grocery store. And of course, he is experiencing these cultural differences in a foreign language."

Ms. Krebs notes that children may be very excited, and/or scared about the new changes, and have difficulty adjusting to parental expectations. They may be confused by how the reality differs from their fantasies of what life would be like after adoption. Ms. Krebs describes how one seven year old girl moving into a family with older siblings was terrified of them because in her orphanage in Russia , the older children were often in charge of the younger ones and were quite hurtful to them. The parents' knowledge of their daughter's orphanage experience enabled them to prepare the older siblings to adjust the ways they interacted with their new sister until she grew comfortable with them. This meant a great deal to the girl and enabled her to learn that the roles of older children - siblings - in her family included that of protection of younger siblings, helping her to feel safe.

An older child coming from foster care may have multiple models of what parents are like and unfortunately, some of their experiences may not have been positive ones. They too, may have a mix of feelings of excitement, fear and confusion. Ms. Krebs says, "One little eight year old boy with a history of physical abuse, adopted by a single mother, would hang his head and become mute whenever he was upset, and then later get into trouble with aggressive behavior toward peers at school. It was likely that his birth parents told him to keep quiet and that his silence kept him from further abuse." With therapeutic support from his therapist and loving encouragement from his mother, he learned how to verbalize his feelings. He eventually became more confident in expressing his feelings in new and positive ways.

Children involved in concurrent planning, where the plan may have been reunification with the birth family are likely to be quite confused about this plan and show signs of anxiety that may be difficult to understand. Again, parents need to take into account the earlier chapters of their older child's life experiences for clues to make sense of present day behavior or emotions.

What Parents Can Do

Ms. Krebs notes that in light of this understanding, parents need to be very patient with themselves and with the children. Older children will go through many changes as they learn how to develop reciprocal relationships with their new family members. "It just takes time," she says. "It helps tremendously if parents have a good understanding of the child's pre-placement history and are prepared to listen to their child's stories from the past. They must be also be prepared to do a lot of teaching about what is expected in their family - Parents must continually state, 'In our family, we don't do___. This is what WE do. One ten year old boy stated that in previous placements, everyone ate dinner in their own rooms. He had to adjust to the fact that in his adoptive family, family members were expected to eat dinner together. Of course, it is equally important that parents be open to incorporating some of the child's wishes (such as traditions and rituals) into family life."

One of the most difficult aspects of parenting older children is the patience required for the time it may take for a mutually satisfying attachment to occur. In her book, Attaching in Adoption , Deborah Gray notes that it can take up to one to two years for the love to come. Many children who have been traumatized may be quite resistant to love for fear of being hurt and rejected. When parents can remember how long their courtship took to lead to a committed relationship, they can have more realistic expectations of themselves and their child.

Parents often report feeling guilty when there are times when they have negative feelings about their children. Others feel lonely when family or friends do not understand how hard it can be sometimes. Support is critical for parents to know that what they are experiencing is normal, and important for helping them to persevere.

Adopting an older child can bring great joy to both parents and the child. The willingness to work with unique challenges is not right for everyone, but for those who choose to bring an older child into their lives, the hard work can bring great happiness.

RESOURCES

Adopting the Older Child by Claudia Jewett
Attaching in Adoption by Deborah Gray
Adopting the Hurt Child by Gregory Peck
Parenting the Hurt Child by Gregory Peck

Success Stories
Adopting the Older Child
Becky & Doug Mountain
Carroll County, Maryland

We came to adoption via infertility. A long and painful road.

After several years of not knowing what we wanted to do, we decided that we would like to become foster care parents in order to help children who may be in need of a family. We both work full time and have no family in the area; therefore, we decided that we would like to care for older children. We also felt as though older children were sometimes forgotten. They need good homes too!

We agreed on an age range of somewhere between 5 and 12. The day that we were licensed, we got the call. They had a six-year-old little girl for us. We were scared to death! This was also a life altering decision, and we had about an hour to make a decision. We thought -- why did we spend the time getting licensed if we weren't going to give this a try?

I tell people, that this has just been the most rewarding and most challenging experience of our lives. Fostering/adopting an older child just worked for us. We had been married six years when our daughter came to live with us. She was close in age to our nieces and nephews and also our friends' children. We were pretty much able to take her everywhere that we enjoyed going.

There were many difficult times during the first few years. Because of her past, she was very reluctant to become close to my husband, which was very hard for him. It was much easier for her to bond with me, and that was also difficult for him. As time has passed, she has allowed him to become her daddy, and they love each other very much. It has not always been easy, to say the least. But, we also try to remind ourselves that biological children are also challenging in different ways.

Since we both work, she is in before and after care at school. Older children don't seem to be sick, as often, so we have had to miss very little time from work. She is now 11 and over the years has become more self-sufficient. She is able to get herself ready for school, pack her lunch, handle responsibilities around the house, and is becoming a little more independent with homework. Although. she is entering middle school this year, and, well, need I say more about the hormones, etc.?

One other area that we don't have to worry about is having "the talk" with her (about being adopted). Since she was older when she joined our family, she is very well aware of her story. All three of us are very open with people about her being adopted. Your story is your story, and we all have one.

When we made the decision to become foster parents, we never realized where that path would take us. In a very short period of time, our daughter changed everything for us as a couple and reinforced the fact that being able to create a family is such a gift. We also realized that you can create a family with an older child. She is very much our daughter, and we are very much her mommy and daddy.