BC's Waiting Children

Claire’s 10-year-old son, Adam, was adopted from a Russian orphanage when he was 19 months old. Her second son, Ethan, joined their family from foster care at age 7. In this 12-part series, Claire shares the “fast and furious learning” she and her family experienced when they adopted an older child. This series ran from 2013 to 2016.

There are few things more life- or soul-destroying than clinging to the feeling that you are a victim of your life experiences, and that the world owes you something for the pain it caused you. And there are even fewer things more life- or soul-destroying than not allowing yourself the space to really feel your loss, fear, and longing.

The waves break on the shore. It’s summer on the west coast, and the Clarke family farm is in full bloom. Sara Clarke, 40, her husband Jack, 45, and their three kids, Taylor, 13, Anna, 7, and Hugo, 5,* wake up surrounded by fields of flowers ready to be cut and arranged for the busy wedding season. They live on 23 acres, four of which they dedicate to nut orchards, flowers, a vegetable garden, fruit trees, 50 laying hens, and barns. The rest of the property is natural forest.

Hello all, I decided to write this article in the hopes to help those young people who are currently in the process of aging out or who will be aging out fairly soon. Aging out for me was a daunting process as I didn't have a lot of help and I feel as though this advice could have saved me a lot of trouble and tears.

In recent years, over 40% of adoptions in B.C. have been completed by foster parents who adopt their foster children. To find out more about this unique path to building a family, we interviewed a mom who’s been there and done that--more than once!

Jane and her husband have been foster parents for more than a decade, and are also parents to twelve children (seven biological and five through adoption).

Lose your expectations

When Ethan came into our family, he was very angry. My family and friends wondered what he had to be angry about. All they could see was that he was part of a loving family. They thought he should be grateful. It was interesting to me that these usually empathetic folks couldn’t immediately see the loss suffered by this child. Before I could understand what was going on, I had to abandon my expectations of them--and of Ethan.

A passion for culture

June 2015 will mark the eighth annual Roots Celebration within Okanagan First Nation Territory, the land of the Syilx people. The event serves Indigenous children and youth in care by helping to instill in them a sense of pride, honour and respect for their identity and heritage. Organizers and participants represent many Nations and bring together the best of what they have to share over a weekend rich in Indigenous cultural experiences focused on children and youth.

Inspiration from Alberta

For 32 years, Alberta has profiled children in need of adoption on their weekly Wednesday’s Child TV program (see page 10 for more on adoption in Alberta). For 12 years, the province has also successfully profiled “harder to place” children on a public website. These campaigns regularly generate new applications from potential parents who go on to be matched with waiting children. In fact, 70% of children profiled this way are matched with parents. What’s the secret to this success?

Just over 650 people took part in BC's first adoption satisfaction survey. TWI Surveys, a Canada-wide, independent research and strategy development company, designed and hosted the survey which was conducted in September 2009.

Overall, the results were positive, but improvements can be made.

Because of the large number of responses to our survey, the results are extremely reliable. As well as areas for improvement, there is lots of good news.

My first encounter with the idea of children in care who needed families was during a church service as a little girl.

The speaker shared unsettling statistics about kids who age out of care and end up incarcerated, homeless, or worse; kids who are separated from their siblings; and young adults who have no place to spend the holidays or summer vacation. I suppose it all resonated with me because I came from a family of five siblings, and I couldn’t imagine my life without them. At that church service I made up my mind that I wanted to adopt older kids one day.