One of my clients is an amazing lady called Robynne. She has a family of children that she has saved from foster care. She has loved them and opened her heart to them when the authorities would have been happy to let them languish without anyone to love them.
Her family now lives here in the UK and they are trying to adopt another child. This is proving very difficult because on nonsensical legislation. Please read over the email (below) that she sent to me. Lets get behind her and her to offer a deserving child the family life that he / she is being deprived of.
Sian.
Most of you know that my husband and I have both biological and adopted children. We are particularly passionate about children who desperately need families but languish in foster care instead. In the US we were trainers, teachers and advocates of foster care and adoption. Here, we have been thrust into the limelight about an issue we feel strongly about:
Interracial adoption.
We've been turned down to adopt a mixed race sibling group who has been looking for a forever family for about 2 years. Simply because we are white. We've even been told that it is better for a child to NEVER have a forever family of their own than to have one a different colour. We could not disagree more.
What's even more frustrating, is that there is a double standard in place...fully black couples, for example, are allowed to adopt half black and half white children, but white couples can't do the same. As a result, if you are a child of colour in the UK, your chances of being split from your biological brothers and sisters or never being adopted is extremely high.
We want this to change. Race should be a factor in deciding adoptive placements, but only ONE of the many that you must consider. Every family is unique and every child is unique. We just believe that, in a system which says that old, young, convicted criminals, singles, couples, gay, straight, married or not, rich or poor, etc. can be considered for a child, race should not automatically block loving families from adopting children of mixed races.
If you agree, we would be so thrilled for you to sign our petition, and forward it on to anyone you think might be interested:
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/adoptionchange/
Ian and I are going to be on BBC1's The Big Questions this Sunday at 10am discussing the issue, if you want to hear more about the issue and problems it creates in the UK.
Robynne Cole
Managing Director
Sierra Distribution, Ltd.
www.armsreach.co.uk
Please get behind them by leaving a comment here, re tweeting this information and signing the petition.
thanks. xx
What a great cause to fight for! I will write a post too and try to involve people who want to x
ReplyDeleteWhat a worthy cause, cant believe our system thinks its better to leave children in a struggling care system than let them go to a loving family, no matter the creed or colour.......shocking.
ReplyDeleteI've signed.
ReplyDeleteMy son is mixed race and me and my partner are both white. It is not an issue. There had been in depth research supporting the view that it does not matter. It is discrimination to not give these kids in care the same chances as other kids.
ReplyDeleteThe laws in this country really are ridiculous.
ReplyDelete'Better to have no family than one of a different colour'? - seriously, who makes this nonsense up??!
Petition signed. Here's hoping it makes a difference.
for heavens sake what centuary are we in. children just need love. its not about colour. petition signed.xx
ReplyDeleteWhat total hypocrisy that we live in a wonderful society where 2 people of different race, colour, religious beliefs etc can come together and give birth to a child and yet a child in a home, through no fault of his / her own has no right to adoptive parents of different race / colour.
ReplyDeleteI fully support this cause and wish you the very best of luck x
I have signed the petition.
ReplyDeleteThis is an issue where there are double standards. You can adopt a child from China if you are not of Chinese race. That favours people with money - it's an expensive process.
Is there any evidence that children who grow up in adoptive families of another colour encounter problems, compared to children who grow up in adoptive families of the same colour?
I wish you well with this cause.
Hi All,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for your support. I am hopeful that we can make the adoption rules far more child-centric so that no child need grow up and out of care never knowing the stability and suppport and love of a forever family!
Lota. . .LOTS of very reputable studies show that the success rate for ALL adoptions is virtually the same whether they are interracial or not. The problem comes when people use statistics to show that interracially adopted kids are a bit more likely to have questions about their identity and heritage. Isolated, that may seem negative. However ALL children go through identity issues. Adopted or not! The real question that needs to be asked is whether children interracially adopted would rather have never had parents, and whether those who were never adopted would rather have stayed unadopted than be raised by racially different families. Across the board, there is almost a 100% NO on both questions.
Sensitive parents, either biological OR adoptive will address the individual needs of their kids and support them as they question.
Thank you again for all of your support.
It's making a difference.
Robynne