BC's Waiting Children

Do big adoptive families work better for children with attachment issues? The families we spoke to all think so.

These days, having numerous kids tends to be considered eccentric. For some children though, a bursting-at-the-seams-family may be exactly what they need.

Most parents shy away from adopting children with special needs. Here we meet parents who actually want to.

When I interviewed Carrie Hohnstein, mom of 11 children, I probed for quotes that might offer hints of the constant drama and stress that I assumed was an inevitable feature of her life.

There were slim pickings. Carrie just isn’t a dramatic person. She’s calm, thoughtful, and unflappable—qualities which are probably central to her success as a parent in a large family.

When, at the age of 16, April O’Neil’s social worker told her she’d like to adopt her, April’s world was turned upside down. Here, April movingly describes her immediate emotions moments after she was told.

It was clear to me that I was standing in one spot—so it must have been the room that was spinning. I was in the principal’s office standing face to face with a woman who, with very few words, wanted to shake up my whole world. 

Social worker Anne Melcombe is a big believer in teen adoption. Why? Because she knows that teens want families and that there are families who want to adopt teens. In this article, we meet some of those parents and the kids they will adopt.

Anne Melcombe once asked a group of former foster kids if they would have liked to have been adopted. One man, 23 years old, 280 lbs, and covered in tattoos, held up his hand and said, “You bet your ass I would have liked a family. I still would!”

Social worker Carol Blake demystifies what can seem to be a nerve wracking and intrusive process--the adoption homestudy.

Quick! Vacuum the rug, dust the furniture, alphabetize the spice rack, the social worker is coming over!

Psychologists have given us a concept of non-verbal communication that makes an incredible amount of sense in the context of adoption—it is called inducement.

Those of us who live or work with adopted children need to understand that inducement is the language of the abandoned. Inducement is the most important conceptual tool we have to understand why children act the way they do.

Four years ago, Focus on Adoption profiled Colleen, an 11-year-old girl who desperately wanted to be adopted. The staff at AFABC were touched by this child’s clear-eyed vision of what her future could and should be. Since then, we’ve kept in touch with Colleen’s progress—as you know, each year that a child waits for a family reduces his or her chances of being adopted. We were thrilled that last year Colleen and her new family’s dreams came true. Here her social worker explains how it finally happened.

I first met Colleen when she was only eight years old.

The BC Public Guardian and Trustee (PGT) holds and manages any funds owned by children who are or were in the care of MCFD. Funds are usually held in trust by the PGT until a child turns 19. The PGT is also the legal guardian of children in foster care.

PGT and foster children

Every permanent ward of MCFD has an assigned Guardianship and Trust Officer (GTO). Social workers must find out who the GTO is for each child on their caseload.

In 2005, Jordan and Kelly Brinton adopted three children from foster care: Jinny, James, and Ron. The couple also have two other children, Steve, 8, and Heidi, 9, adopted at birth. Despite careful preparation, and being experienced foster parents, the couple were soon devastated by the behaviours of their severely traumatized children. Each child exhibited different symptoms of trauma, abuse, and neglect; but it was their oldest son who proved the biggest challenge. Here, Kelly shares her story.

When Tracy and Scott Hill adopted two older children, realizing that it’s not always easy for kids to make the adjustment to a new family, they decided to let the girls take the lead in what they should call their new parents. It took a while, but eventually those magical words “Mom” and “Dad”—that so many parents take for granted—started to come naturally. Here’s their story.