Thank you to everyone who responded to our letter about developing our email distribution list for the update notices for Adoption News.  We had a fantastic response.  Did you know that you can also subscribe to Adoption News or obtain an RSS feed through this blog site? 
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Adoption, Family Information Service and Post Care Services and Post Adoption Support Services present a free event on 5 October for adult Adoptees, Adoptive Families and interested others to see a film screening of the documentary Resilience and participate in a Q&A session with the film’s Director and Producer, Tammy Chu.  Read more…

Post Adoption Support Services (PASS), Relationships Australia South Australia, is holding a 6 week Language and Culture Course for adoptive families with younger children.  You can register!  Read more…

Locally born children who are adopted are placed with their new families after a considerable amount of case work with their birth families, often involving the grand parents and other relatives or significant other people in the birth parents’ lives.  While this work is conducted the children are most often placed in foster care.  Read more…

The Adoptions Team Social Work Student, Kayla Curtis is conducting research into the important area of adoption of siblings.  As most children in the population have at least one sibling, it is not surprising to find that this is also true for children who have been adopted.  Read about Kayla’s research with South Australian adoptive families.  Read more…

The Ethiopian Adoption Authority, the Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MoWA) requires all adoptive parents finalising an adoption from Ethiopia to provide annual reports about their adopted child up to the age of 18 years.  Our representative in Ethiopia, Ato Lakew, has just advised that MoWA has made an additional request of all families with children adopted from Ethiopia for reports containing specific information.  Read more…

Around the time of the terrible earthquake in Haiti in January this year, a number of people contacted Adoption, Family Information and Post Care Service inquiring about the possibility of adopting children from that country.  In August, International Social Services produced a report on adoption of Children from Haiti.  Read more…

Adelaide cinemas are currently showing two new movies with a central theme of adoption.  You’re invited to see one of them on 3 July through a group booking at the Post Adoption Support Service (PASS).  The movies are Mother and Child from the US and The Waiting City, an Australian movie set in India.  Free passes are available to see The Waiting City.

The South Australian Memorial to the Forgotten Australians was unveiled on 17 June in Peace Park at the corner of Sir Edwin Smith Avenue and Brougham Place (opposite the Women’s and Children’s Hospital).  The Memorial consists of four huge stainless steel daisies each in a different state of opening as a symbol of hope and healing for the thousands of children who suffered harm in out of home care.

We hope that each update will profile at least one of our staff members.  This update we have featured Senior Social Worker, Anne Barkaway.  Anne is currently running our Education Program for prospective adoptive and post-adoptive parents.

After about 20 years as the representative for the Australian Ethiopian adoption program based in Ethiopia Ato Lakew Gebeyehu has decided to transition from his role over the next 6 months or so and a new representative in Ethiopia will be appointed for the program.

The South Australian Government through Multicultural SA maintains an online events calendar that is very handy to check out what days of significance exist for people from various backgrounds, for example, national days or days of religious significance.  July has a few days of significance to people in the adoption community.

The joint education series run by the Post Adoption Support Service and Adoption, Family Records and Post Care Services showing and discussing Adopted - The Movie is proving very successful.  Some people have missed out on this series and we are seeking registrations from other applicants who may want to see the film if we re-screen it in a few months time.

General parenting education programs are available from various organisations in the community.  As we become aware of such courses we will include them in this newsletter.   We have featured a couple of courses in this Update that you may be interested in.

An update about the Ethiopia – Australia adoption program is now available on the website of the Commonwealth Attorney General’s Department (Australian Central Authority).   It describes the new fee structure which relates to all files with activity from 6 April 2010.

We have been made aware that serious allegations have been recently made against the Indian adoption agency Preet Mandir.  Last week a Central Bureau of Investigation press release stated a case has been registered against Mr Bhasin, the Managing Trustee of Preet Mandir.

Chris Campbell and Cynthia Beare, along with other State and Territory Central Authorities (CAs) and the Australian Central Authority met with a delegation of officials from the China Centre for Adoption Affairs (CCAA) and various provincial authorities, in Canberra last week.

A Monash University-led research team is calling for people to share their stories about adoption in an effort to better inform future Australian public policy-makers on the issue.
The four-year national research project aims to develop a major history of adoption in Australia from the end of World War II to the present.

Lynelle Beveridge, the Founder and Director of the Inter-Country Adoptee Support Network (ICASN) has Resigned from both ICASN and as the adoptee member of the National Intercountry Adoption Advisory Group.

Lynelle, an adopted person from Vietnam along with other adult overseas adoptees created ICASN in 1998 and in so doing provided a voice for intercountry adopted people in Australia, particularly contributing to policy and practice in this country.

The next joint education program with the Post Adoption Support Service (PASS) starting in June at short notice!  This year the education sessions and discussions will be centred on “Adopted: The Movie.”  The first session is 7 June 6.30pm to 9.00pm and you need to register NOW!

We are very excited about this inaugural edition of our electronic newsletter, which for the first time combines news about inter-country adoption as well as about our local born adoption program.  From time to time it will also carry items about our family records and post care services programs for people who were previously adopted or in care.

Welcome to our new Adoption News.  We hope that it provides you with some of the information you are looking for and also that it keeps us more in touch with one another.  This way of presenting information gives us more opportunities to be flexible and to be responsive to your feedback and to the changing environment.  For example, we will be able to produce news items more regularly than we were able to in the previous inter-country newsletter format.

It’s good to know who’s who at Adoption and Family Information and Post Care Services.  We operate in three teams, attending to specific program areas and responsibilities.  In this edition we have given you some broad brush strokes of the teams as well as introducing you to our two Social Work students.

In February we conducted a Stage 2 workshop for people who want to be approved to adopt a locally born child.  This year saw significantly increased interest in this program with 14 couples attending.  One of the highlights of the workshop was a presentation by the birth and adoptive mothers of an adopted 18 year old child.

It is important to keep your application current so please don’t forget to notify us if your circumstances change.  This can be anything from a change of address to changed employment or health conditions.  If you advise us in a timely way we can work through any implications with you.

As an adoption applicant you are required to notify us of any changes relevant to your adoption application. There are certain circumstances where you are required to notify us within 28 days, such as changes which relate to meeting the criteria of the overseas country.