February News
Center For Family Connections

February 2011 - Vol 1, Issue 2

Federal Adoption Tax Credit Assistance

North American Council on Adoptable Children (NACAC)

and H&R Block collaborate to assist adoptive families with claiming the Federal Adoption Tax Credit. Please help spread the news.

Please click here for VFA's FaceBook Page

For Birthparents...

Dear Friend in the effort for

justice,

If you relinquished a child for

adoption and believe adoptees

should have the right to a copy

of their OBC,

If you would prefer to be

contacted by your son or

daughter rather than a con-

fidential intermediary;

If you are an adopted person,

and your birth mother is alive

and would write a letter of

support,

If you are an adoptive parent,

and believe you have the right

to know our child's birth identity

while s/he is a minor if you

want or need to;

If you are an adoption pro-

fessional,

a. please respond in the

"comment" section to the op-ed

posted below: (please copy-

and-paste into Word for

possible future use....see b.)

Adoption Records link

b. and let us know if you would

send a letter to all NJ

Assembly persons either though

NJCARE or on your own telling

them why A1406 is the bill to

support and why A3672 is

unnecessary, costly, far more

invasive of privacy than A1406,

etc. and an OBSTRUCTIONist

tactic. E-mail Pam

Thank you. The truth of birth

parents' experiences needs to

get before the public and NJ

lawmakers. Their files on this

bill have to be huge because

many of you have already

written, many reputable

organizations have already

written, and the facts are in the

files in the legislators' offices.

pam

--

Pam Hasegawa
29 Hill St.
Morristown, NJ 07960-5328
h/o. 973.292.2440
c. 201.400.6714

NJ Coalition for Adoption

Reform and Education:

www.nj-care.org

American Adoption Congress:

www.americanadoptioncongress.org

lucy

Service Trips to Guatemala

Service Trips to Guatemala with Leceta

2012 Service Trip Date:

April 25th through May 6, 2012

Leceta is considering leading just one team in 2012.

Don't be left out!

Taking names now

E-mail Leceta

Please click here for Leceta's FaceBook Page

Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010: Categorical Eligibility for Free Meals to Foster Children

Signed into law by the President on December 13, 2010, the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 allows the US Department of Agriculture, for the first time in over 30 years, the chance to make real reforms to the school lunch and breakfast programs by improving the critical nutrition and hunger safety net for millions of children. It is also the legislative centerpiece of First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move! Initiative (Let's Move! site).The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 provides categorical eligibility to foster children for free meals served under the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act. Click on the link below to access a memo that provides guidance to Regional Special Nutrition and State Child Nutrition Program Directors for implementing the new eligibility standards. It also encourages these Program Directors to reach out to State and local child welfare agencies to ensure timely and efficient implementation.

Child Nutrition Reauthorization 2010

If you would like to reach out directly to your State Child Nutrition Programs to collaborate on the implementation of the new law or to find out more information about implementation in your State, contact information can be found here
More information about the Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010 can be found by clicking here

In-depth Discussions at the 2011 NACAC Conference

At the NACAC conference this year, we will be hosting in-depth dialogues about key issues in adoption. During a workshop session, attendees will participate in a facilitated group discussion to develop an action plan to address certain topics. Two topics are: (1) accessing residential treatment for your adopted child without placing them in foster care and facing abuse allegations, and (2) considering issues of race, culture, and special needs when making a child's initial foster careplacement.

We are hoping to add a few more of these in-depth discussions. If you would like to suggest a topic or lead a session, please e-mail Mary McGowan here by February 16.

Advertise and/or Exhibit at the 2011 NACAC Conference

We are currently accepting applications for advertising in the NACAC conference registration booklet and exhibiting at the conference in August.

For more information and to download the applications, please visit this link.

New Supports for Youth Aging Out of Foster Care

Dear CfJJ Members and Friends:

Just catching up with the caption of our

Jan. 27 JJ News - New Supports for Youth Aging Out of Foster Care - which you might have found a bit confusing, since the text which followed it was unrelated to the caption - sorry about that!

A new law that took effect last month

extends much-needed services to youth

who "age-out" of foster care each year in

Massachusetts when they turn 18. With the youth's consent, the Department of

Children and Families (DCF) will now be

responsible for providing services until the youth turns 22. The law also requires that a personalized transition plan be provided to a youth before he or she leaves the care of DCF. The committing court will retain jurisdiction during the extension period and must approve the transition plan.

This is an important stabilizing support for

the 500-700 youth who "age-out" of foster

care each year in Massachusetts and who are at high risk for homelessness,

unemployment, teen pregnancy and

involvement with the criminal justice system.

Moreover, it will enable Massachusetts to

access approximately $5 million each year in matching federal funds for extending foster care services.

The legislation originated as SB 40

(sponsored by Senator Jennifer Flanagan) and was finally enacted as Sections 18-22 of Chapter 359 of the Acts of 2010

Best wishes,

Citizens for Juvenile Justice

101 Tremont Street, Suite 1000
Boston, MA 02108
Tel: 617-338-1050
Web

Center For Family Connections Groups, Trainings, and Events

Click on any of the links under the photos for more information and a larger view of the flyer.

Picking Up the Pieces Group

Pen and Think Group

ARC ACTION Save the Date

Meeting of the Minds Save the Date

FaCT flyer March 11

March 2011 FaCT flyer

FaCT 2010-2011 schedule

2010 - 2011 FaCT Calendar

Greetings!

Wishing all of our Friends of CFFC a wonderful Valentines Day and some fun with people you love and like!! We hope your day involves the right amounts of chocolate, flowers, and handmade cards!!

Here at CFFC we are working very hard to keep kids and families feeling emotionally safe.

Our funding cuts keep hitting us harder and harder. There is no shortage of need - we have many intakes of new clients every week and we have our share of crises at this time of year as families with children or adults who suffer depression are sensitive to the darkness and drear of winter.

We tried to cheer up the staff by having a 'chase away the doldrums' party at ChangSho...we celebrated three birthdays, Chinese New Year, a goodbye to one staff member who is moving to another job in our extended family and two new people who have started at CFFC and hope to help us to make it thrive!

We had a snowstorm that caused us to combine two intern interview days into one and we had to get clever in order to interview twenty amazing candidates in about three hours! We did it and found some great talent for next year.

If your heart is open this Valentines, we would welcome donations to make our work extend further. We also have a great Renoir up on auction on eBay Mission Fish (click here to see the auction). Please bid away!!

We are about to spruce up the waiting room area and the operations office. Any donations for that are welcome as well. We are going to IKEA this week to find desks! We desperately need dollhouses, and doll house people of various ethnicities. In play therapy, so many of our kids have moved from orphanages to foster homes to more foster homes and it can be most helpful to have houses to represent where they were and for us to 'show' us what has happened in their past. There are nice ones in a catalog, which cost about $79. Each. The people (a set of four) are about $20. Each and come in three races.

We are also always in need of art supplies galore, for both groups and for individual work with children and adults.

Trends we are seeing this month have been :

· Extreme and dangerous acting out of 11-14 year olds.

· Internet/Social Networking by kids with both unsavory strangers, and sometimes with birth family members, who are either finding them or they are searching.

· Some 6-9 year olds who are wanting more information about their past in order to make sense of their life at this new development stage.

· Many families exploring the idea of trips to the homeland, or to the home state of their children.

· Many families needing help in order to tell their children hard parts of their life story.

· Many individuals and couples wanting guidance, as they consider adoption.

· Many birth parents and family members coming to talk about how they can be appropriately introduced to the adoptive family and how they can be a part of the extended family of the child they gave birth to.

· Families with children in middle school who are realizing that their child is experiencing institutional racism and wanting help to deal with this.

We are busy writing grant proposals. We had spent quite a bit of time on a DMH contract submission, when suddenly DMH rescinded the RFP!! Not very kind in this economy as time is money and we spent quite a bit of my time and that of a consultant.

We are hoping to hear from our Harvard Business School VCO team, as we redo our Marketing Plans.

cape dune

Think of Summer...

We have an amazing roster of speakers coming to the Cape this summer for the Combined ARC Intensives and Action International Post Adoption Conference July 10-14 (Meeting of the Minds brochure). We desperately need co sponsors and underwriters for this event...It is a great way to advertise your business and your philanthropy. With each donation of $5,000 you will have three scholarships to send staff or employees, and the remainder will go toward creating the conference. Think of summer and of Provincetown!!

We are collaborating with Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute in presenting a day of awareness and art at Hard Rock Café in NY (click here for more information or here for the informational flyer)

Things that have been happening at CFFC in terms of Training:

· Our usual monthly FACT trainings are well received and continue (2010 - 2011 FaCT Schedule)

· Our groups are enrolled well and are expanding (see group listings here)

I have been doing trainings for outside agencies etc.:

· I consulted to a wonderful group of about six couples, the Moms have been meeting for about twenty years and all have an adopted adult about that old! They were wonderful and thoughtful and we had a very comprehensive discussion about individuation and adoption!

· I did a day-long training for the Infant Parent Institute at UMass Boston, following two days of Bruce Perry training that group. A wonderful assemblage of thirty bright and interested professionals who work with Parents and Infants.

Upcoming:

· Teacher trainings at schools in Cambridge and Northampton

· Off to Ireland on March 16 to work with Valerie O'Brien on Post Adoption Course and on our Research and Writing Project about the Children who were 'exported' from Ireland to the US from about 1930-1980, and how understanding that both US and Ireland are both a sending and receiving country can help us to provide better services and care for the children and families that are impacted on both ends of the world.

It was only a few months ago that I had the honor and sadness of eulogizing my dear friend and mentor, Annette Baran and now...This last month...I was honored and saddened to say farewell in a eulogy for BJ Lifton.

bj lifton

For a copy of my eulogy for BJ, please click here.

One of our adoptive parents wanted us to think about all of the 'lost babies' and so this month, "we remember all babies born sleeping, or whom we have carried but never met, or those we have held but could not take home, or the ones that came home but didn't stay." This Mom states that baby loss is still... a taboo subject. She wants us to realize that just as birth parents lose their child in adoption, adoptive parents have also often lost children as well. Without acknowledging all of the losses in adoption, the child will hold the work of all of the adults as well as his/her own.

And speaking of those children. Remember to catch your child doing something good! Don't just catch the things that need guidance and correction!

super kid award

In finishing, I want you to enjoy this Valentine's Day. Enjoy the people that you love. Enjoy the depths of winter, because it will help us all to appreciate the Spring even more!!

baseball heart

Cheers!!!

Joyce

MamaSpeak: Co-Parenting is the New Black History Celebration by Talibah Mbonisi

As the daughter of a Black Studies pioneer and a history major, myself, the study of Black history has always been an integral part of my life. It was all around me, on the bookshelves of my parents' home, in the framed art on their walls, in the lessons my father taught to college students. It just was. No special month required. So, despite the identity crises resulting from being raised in a lily white college town, I was well-versed in the proud heritage from which I sprang...kings and queens of African nations, revolutionaries and activists, heroes and sheroes whose names were rarely found in any of my school books.

In the past few years, though, "Black History" has taken on new meaning for me. Thanks to my father's interest and commitment to doing genealogical research on his family, I have been blessed with a more intimate connection to the history embedded in my biological and cultural DNA. And, learning that history has influenced my story about myself in ways that no knowledge of an ancient Egyptian pharaoh ever could.

For much of my life my story has been about fear-fear of failing, fear of succeeding, fear of looking like an idiot, fear of getting hurt...you name it. You've felt it. At so many points in my life, I have been confronted by this paralyzing thought that I can't do it (whatever it is). Whatever the ingredient was that makes some people do it anyway...I believed I didn't have it. It just wasn't in my genetic code. And, it cost me. I mortgaged some valuable opportunities and hoarded some important contributions that might have made a difference somewhere to someone. But, that was my story, at least the first draft, and I was sticking to it.

But, inspired by his research, my father started to share new stories...well, old ones, really, but, new to me. And, those stories inspired a new draft of my own. The heroes of these tales include an Uncle who won the pardon of his brother after decades of hard labor on a Mississippi chain gang for exacting his own sense of justice with a shotgun at a time when and a place where there was no justice for a little Black girl, his daughter, who had been raped. And, also among them are landowning freedmen from Virginia, brothers, unjustly enslaved and sent to Mississippi after the Dred Scott decision, only to reemerge there as freedmen and landowners again decades later; a feat as impressive as turning water into wine during that era. My father's interest has connected us to the Bubi people of Bioko island, known for overcoming their own incessant internal warfare when necessary to collectively kick the assess of slavers who attempted to set foot upon the shores of their island.

The moral of these stories for me is that I come from some fierce stock. My people, my kin, were determined, justice-loving, do-or-die, nuttin' nice kind of folks both on the continent and on the plantation, and that is the blood that flows in me. The closeness of some of this history, the specificity of it, has reshaped who I know myself to be in many ways. It has given me certainty that the immediate past is not all that defines me and that I have a direct and traceable connection to some bad ass Black folks. And, though it is difficult to explain, it is empowering for me to be able to say with certainty that I, too, am a bad ass Black woman...and I get that trait from my great-great-grandfather on my father's side. So, as I enter into the second half of my life, I do it armed with the second draft of my story...one that serves me more fully than the first.

And, I wish that for every Black child. If I could give each of our children one Black History Month gift, it would be the opportunity to say with certainty, "Yeah...I am [insert word of power here], and I get that from my mother/father's side."

Of course, because our lineage as African people in this country is difficult to trace, there are barriers. But, perhaps the other part of that tragedy is that because our families have been disconnected by the conflict that often accompanies divorce, separation and never being married...with kids...most of our children never get a true appreciation of the blood that flows through them.

I understand that you might not be enamored with your child's Mama or Daddy today or ever, but what we have to understand as parents is that our children's stories don't start with us. Many, if not all of us, have hearts that pump blood infused with the inspiration, determination and genius of a line of survivors, strivers and thrivers. Our shortsightedness, the Baby Mama/Baby Daddy drama that we allow to be insurmountable, denies them their rightful access to a connection that could be the healing potion for the parts of their stories that blind them to their possibilities.

Giving our greatest effort to co-parenting and learning and sharing the truth that the weave of their DNA is strong, the reach is deep and the rich blood of both sides of their family flows unhindered within them could be the salve that soothes the pain of the story they carry...and exposes the illusion that because their parents have separated, their family is broken.

I'm Legit Video

Click on the YouTube icon to the left
to see the I'm Legit video

Zara H. Phillips featuring DMC.

Act Zero Films: Directed by Justin Lundstrom

Photographed by Greta Zozula

Edited by Scott Hancock

IM LEGIT MUSIC AND LYRICS WRITTEN

BY ZARA PHILLIPS,

RAP WRITTEN BY DARRYL MCDANIELS (2009)

Recorded and mixed at Chung King Studios, NY,NY.

Produced by Zara Phillips, Darryl McDaniels, Ari Raskin.

Assistants Zach Tenety, Phill Lazar, Mike Makowski

Additional programs and DJ scratch Joe Mosse Demby.

Vocals : Zara Phillips, Darryl McDaniels

Guitar; Martin Moretto

Bass; T-bone Wolk

Drums; Steve Holley

Strings; Sweet Plaintain

String Arrangement; Eddie Venegas

Adoption Tuition Waiver

The adoption tuition waiver provides free tuition (not fees, books, etc.) for undergraduate studies at MA public colleges and universities to people under 25 who were adopted through the public child welfare system here in MA. A full description of the requirement can be found here:

MA Adoption Tuition Waiver

CCHR: Psychiatry - Labeling Kids with Bogus "Mental Disorders"

Click on the YouTube icon to the left
to see the CCHR video

20 Million Kids & Adolescents are labeled with "mental disorders" that are based solely on a checklist of behaviors. There are no brain scans, x-rays, genetic or blood tests that can prove they are "mentally ill", yet these children are stigmatized for life with psychiatric disorders, and prescribed dangerous,life-threatening psychiatric drugs. Child drugging is a $4.8 billion-a-year industry. Get the facts about this multi-billion dollar industry that is labeling and drugging kids for profit.

All in the Mind

Claudia Hammond looks at social networking and adoption and reviews the latest evidence on adopted children's contact with their birth families. Please click here or here to watch the BBC iPlayer story online.

Free-Range Parents and Chinese Moms: Where We Agree

by Lenore Skenazy

All week my inbox has have been practically shouting: "Did you see the Tiger Parenting" piece? It's like the opposite of Free-Range Kids!"

Except, in part, it isn't.

Free-Range Kids, my book and blog, contends that we don't need to helicopter so much. Our kids can make their own playdates, sandwiches and -- most importantly -- mistakes. A kid who takes the wrong bus and then figures out the way back home is a better kid for it: She goofed, it wasn't the end of the world, she rose to the occasion. Now she's ready for the next thing that looks a little daunting.

Too often, today's kids never get that kind of challenge. We baby them out of fear that they're less safe ("She can't take the bus by herself -- she could be abducted!") and less competent ("He can never figure out anything to do -- that's why I have to play with him!") than we were.
That is not a problem Amy Chua...click here for more

Reflections on a Dream Deferred

We have come a great distance in this nation since the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The African-American middle class has grown. African Americans, women, and other minorities are in positions of leadership today that they could never have aspired to 40 years ago. In the 2008 election season, an African-American man is a serious contender for the Democratic nomination for president; so is a woman. In 1968, just these ideas would have been seen as highly unlikely, even dangerous.

There are more African-American elected officials today than we would have ever dreamed possible in 1968. Then, there were fewer than 50 black elected officials in the 11 Southern states of the Confederacy. Today there are over 8,000 all across the country, and Mississippi has more than any other state. Our whole society has been captivated by African-American megastars, like Oprah Winfrey, who dominate the cultural dialogue, influence stock trades, and lead by example as philanthropists and humanitarians.

On the other hand, there are still millions of black people in this country, and people of color across the globe, who are left out and left behind. There are still people who cannot afford to see doctors. We are still spending too many of our resources on war, instead of meeting basic human needs. In 1968, this nation was engulfed in violence. Violence is accepted by too many in our society today as a means to silence opposition and difference. A culture of violence has sprung up among us that is gnawing at the soul of our society, a culture which justifies brutality, torture and cruelty. In 1968, we could not avoid the signs of overt racism and hatred in our daily lives. Forty years later, we are still reckoning with those same symbols of hate, whether through a noose hung on a tree in Jena, La., or on a professor's door at Columbia University.

In my estimation, the greatest speech Dr. King ever made was delivered at Riverside Baptist Church in New York City on April 4, 1967. I was there in the audience when he began by saying, "A time comes when silence is betrayal. ... Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in times of war." He was speaking then about the war in Vietnam. Forty years later, the fundamental assertions made in his speech apply to the war in Iraq today.

"A true revolution of values," he continued, "will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. ... A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth ... and say, 'This is not just.' ... A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war, 'This way of settling differences is not just.' ... True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring."

In 2008, we are still rediscovering the true meaning of our democracy. Democracy is not a state. It is not some high plateau that we struggle to reach so we can finally settle down to rest. Democracy is an act. It is an act that requires participation, organization and dedication to the highest principles. It is an act, and a series of actions that require us to continuously verify our commitment to civil rights and social justice at every challenge. Above all, Martin Luther King, Jr. led by example and demonstrated this devotion with his life and his sacrifice. "Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of night," he said, "have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak."

In the final analysis, we cannot deny that 40 years later, the dream of Martin Luther King, Jr. still has not been realized. We still have not reached the Promised Land that he described the night before he was killed in Memphis, Tenn. Are we closer to building the Beloved Community? Are we closer to building a society based on simple justice that values the dignity and the worth of every human being? Yes, we are closer, but we still have a great distance we must travel before we build a Beloved Community, a nation and a world society at peace with itself.

John Lewis has been the Representative of the 5th U.S. Congressional District of Georgia since 1987 and has been called "the conscience of the U.S. Congress" by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. One of the most courageous figures in the Civil Rights Movement, Lewis was a founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and a participant in many of the most notable actions of the era, including lunch counter sit-ins, the Freedom Rides of 1961 and the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala. in 1965. He was beaten severely by angry mobs on many occasions and arrested more than 40 times, but steadfastly adhered to the principles of nonviolence espoused by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and others in the Movement. Born the son of sharecroppers outside Troy, Ala., Lewis is a graduate of Fisk University and recipient of numerous awards for his lifelong leadership. He lives in Atlanta with his wife, Lillian. His Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement(ISBN 0-15-600708-8; $16) is the most definitive of many books, movies and documentaries about his life and works.