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WA Foster/Adopt Program News
October 22, 2013
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State of the Program
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Dear Friends,
 We are in the heart of autumn and hope you are all happy, healthy and enjoying the beautiful and colorful foliage on display. So far this month, we've placed a 5 year old boy with one of our local families. We now have about 60 licensed foster homes and about a third of them have foster children.
One family recently mentioned that they haven't received much communication from us and they wonder if "anything is happening" with their file. Unfortunately, with so many active families and so few staff members, we don't have the time to check in with families on a regular basis. However, you can rest assured that we are actively looking for the right child for you! We get several phone calls and average at least 30 emails a day from state workers looking for the right family for a child on their caseload, so it's very likely that we have talked to a state worker about your family recently! We also send out all active homestudies twice a month to over 40 state offices.
As always, we're here to address any concerns or answer any questions you may have, so please feel free to give Yvette, Gay, or Kathy a call or send an email if you would like an update on your case or if anything comes up!
Sincerely, AAI Foster/Adopt Staff |
| Halloween Fun | |
It's time to carve up some pumpkins, buy bags of candy, and create your costume; Halloween is right around the corner! Here are a few quick tips to help ensure a safe, fun night out:
For the Little Ones
- Always accompany your child or make sure they are with another trusted adult while trick-or-treating.
- Make sure they are visible with items such as bright clothing or glow sticks.
- Be sure they can see well. Masks may be fun and easy, but they can really interfere with vision. Makeup is much safer and completely customizable, too!
- Stay in well-lit areas. Even if you're in a familiar neighborhood, falls can still happen easily in the dark, especially with excited, running children around. Skip dark houses; no lights means no one is home or they are out of candy.
For the Bigger Ones
- If your Big Kid still loves to trick-or-treat, that's great! It is a fun way to spend time with their friends and express themselves with creative costumes, too.
- Although Halloween seems to often invite trickery and mayhem, there is nothing traditional about vandalism. It's not what the holiday is about and it's not possible to use the holiday to avoid prosecution for such mischief as throwing eggs or exploding pumpkins. This is a great time to offer advice about making good decisions.
- There are many community and school activities offered for teens and adolescents that are supervised with activities geared toward older kids. Check with your local churches, park and recreation departments, or offer up your home for a good old fashioned Halloween party. Kids can plan a lot of the fun and you can join in!
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| Families Wanted for Respite Care | |
Foster families are allowed two days of respite for their foster children each month. We would like to compile a list of families who would be willing to provide respite care for children in our foster homes. If you are interested, please let Kathy know. The list would be available to all of our foster families and would contain your preferred contact information. The family needing respite will contact you directly and you are free to accept or decline the placement; being on the list does not mean that you must always say, "yes!"
Please keep in mind that you can only provide care for children according to the restrictions of your license. For example, if you are licensed for three children, birth to 9, and you have two children in your home already, you could only provide respite for one child up to 9 years old at a time.
If you have any questions about providing or receiving respite, please contact Kathy!
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| Keep Your Contact Info Current! | |
If you're planning on moving to a new residence, whether it be across the state or just across the street, please remember to notify our office as soon as possible! We have 30 days from the time of the move to amend your license, which includes having your adoption counselor visit the new home and submitting paperwork to the state. If your license is not amended in time, it becomes invalid and a child cannot be placed in your home.
If it's only your email address that's changing, we also want to know! We don't want you to miss any of our newsletters, so please remember to send us your new email so we can keep our lists current. If you think you've missed a newsletter, check out the Newsletter Archive link at the bottom of our website to find all the newsletters we've sent out for the past year.
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| AAI Turns 30! | |
 AAI is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year and we're commemorating this milestone with an international cookbook with recipes from 30 of the countries from which we have placed over 4,400 children. Production is moving along nicely; there are only a handful more recipes to collect and a few more photos to work into the scheme of things. Each recipe is accompanied by a short accounting of the number of placements, a brief overview of the country's cuisine and, for some programs, a succinct account of the program's beginnings.
In looking through old placement logs, we were pleasantly surprised to figure out that AAI has actually facilitated adoptions from 39 countries during the course of its thirty year history! Additionally, we've completed homestudies for families living around the world, from India to New Zealand and several places in between. Not bad for a small agency tucked away in the foothills of the Olympic Mountains!
We hope to have the cookbook ready for preorder soon, so save a place on your shelf for one!
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Adoption Advocates International
709 South Peabody Street
Port Angeles, WA 98362
(360) 452-4777
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