BC's Waiting Children

Adopted at 16, April O'Neil explains that accepting the love and involvement of a new mom isn't an automatic or smooth process.

Because of the support of my mom, and our choice to go forward with adoption, my life has changed in ways I never would have imagined.

In the last few years, I have graduated from high school, got through my first year at Simon Fraser University and, somehow, managed to convince ICBC to give me a driver’s license.

A youth speaks his mind about aging out of care without an adoptive family

We spoke with Chris Tait, a young man who recently aged out of care, about his thoughts on permanency for waiting children and teen adoption.

How do you feel about aging out of care without having found a forever family?

"Imagine being married to someone for eight years, and then being told that you have to get a divorce and some stranger will choose your new spouse. Then imagine moving in with that person after only knowing them for a little while. What if they don’t like you, or you don’t like them — what next?"

Founded in 1967, the BC Federation of Foster Parent Associations (BCFFPA) has been providing information, education, support and advocacy to foster parents and prospective foster parents for over 50 years. The Association works in partnership with MCFD and other provincial and regional agencies to ensure B.C’.s children receive quality in-home care.

"Two years ago we adopted a child of six. We have found parenting him far more difficult than we ever expected, or were prepared for. He has not really settled down and we find his behaviour very demanding. My husband and I are in despair. We don’t know what to do or where to turn."

Like many adoption workers for the Ministry, I am most often contacted by those interested in adopting a child, or sibling group, who fall into one major category, "five or under, the younger the better." The reasons are not hard to understand. Children this age have an unarguable appeal and many prospective adoptive parents feel that "this is the one" after seeing a child's photo. There is also a common perception that the younger the child the easier the attachment process will be after placement, and the sense, or hope, that the younger child will feel more fully like "our own."

As adoptive parents who began our journey with our application to adopt almost 25 years ago, we’ve seen some changes along the way. One of those changes has been regarding the adoption of children of First Nations ancestry into non- First Nations homes.

Our first adoption was a child of First Nations ancestry, and we were given very little information about his birth mother’s community, or even about how to support his culture. Fast forward a few years and his half brother joined us.

Cathy Sarino works for Kelowna Community Resources in their Special Needs Adoption Program. Her job is to help children understand, and hopefully accept, that they cannot live with their birth parents or their foster parents. She works with the children and their foster parents to deal with the grief and loss and guide them into a state of readiness to join another family.

Recently I received another “one of those calls out of the blue” that all social workers occasionally receive. This call was from an adoptive family that I had worked with in the past and hadn’t heard from for almost seven years, as they had moved from our region.

Life with my bio/adopt/foster family was always interesting and always changing.

My first connection to adoption was a toothy, hairless Cabbage Patch kid with a scrawling Xavier Roberts tattoo on his posterior. My second connection arrived as two-year-old toddlers – twin brothers that would be my family’s first step into the world of adoption. I stopped counting those connections soon after. More children arrived. Our family expanded exponentially. Friends jumped on board, adopting little and big ones. Even an aunt and uncle joined in. Adoption was everywhere.