Adoption News

ADOPTION ONLINE

Agencies, Prospective Parents Use The Internet To Exchange Information, Cut Red Tape, Facilitate Placements

By PHIL HALL, Special To The Courant

July 25, 2005

You can get almost anything on the Internet, whether it’s automobiles or prescription medication or bootleg videos. For some people, that includes an extraordinary commodity: children.

Laura Christianson, a free-lance writer in Snohomish, Wash., who writes the Exploring Adoption blog (adoptionblogs.typepad.com), says the Internet has been a blessing for prospective parents seeking to adopt.

“The Internet opens a window to the world for people who want to learn about adoption,” she says. “Rather than fruitlessly searching through the phone book for an adoption agency, people can now easily learn about adoption from the privacy of their home computer. There is a wealth of information about every type of adoption on the Web. Parents can view photo listings of children available for adoption, they can find information about how to finance adoption and they can network with other adoptive parents.  They can ‘advertise’ their desire to adopt, either from their personal website or from a centralized adoption site.”

There are no statistics on how many adoptions have been facilitated online, but empirical evidence would suggest the numbers are significant. Martha Osborne, the self-proclaimed “Mom to five fabulous kids from China and Korea” and editor of the RainbowKids.com International Adoption E-Zine (www.rainbowkids.com), was among the pioneers in using the Internet to expand her family.

“I first discovered the Internet in 1995 after reading a newspaper article about adoptions from China,” she says. “We had been told by our local foster-care agency that we were too old (my husband was 46 at the time) and, as white parents, we could not adopt transracially. After reading that article and finding out that China was very open to my husband’s age, I went online for the first time.”

Osborne says the 1995 Internet was not exactly overflowing with information on the subject. “There were only two websites about adoption from China, and none about adopting from other countries,” she says. “While waiting to adopt, I taught myself HTML and, with the help of my husband and stepson, I launched RainbowKids as a place for parents to get the facts about international adoption. I had no idea it would turn into a monthly online magazine and that the focus would expand so very much. I am very pleased with how RainbowKids has grown, the awards it has received, and the over 7,000 children it has helped to find families.”

Matt Skallerud, the president of HIM Corp., which runs the ProudParenting.com site, says the Net has been especially helpful for gay couples who adopt children because a sympathetic support network is frequently absent in their local gay communities.

“We’re offering gay parents a site with news and stories that’s relevant to them, as well as interactive features allowing them to communicate and meet one another,” he says. “Being a gay parent can be a lonely business sometimes. Anecdotally, it’s tough for gay parents to afford the time to make new friends.”

At Lutheran Social Services of New England (www.adoptlss.org) in Rocky Hill, a new Web-conferencing program offers prospective parents a fuller picture of adoption.

“We offer regular free sessions, both online and in our offices, to help families learn more about adoption,” says Penny Phillips, an adoption advocate for the agency. “The Web-conference sessions allow people to participate in our meetings from their own computer. All that is needed is an Internet connection and a telephone.

“We can conference up to 10 people at a time into a meeting.  People follow along visually on their computer screen and participate by listening and asking questions through their telephone.”

Phillips says the Web conference is a natural response to the broadband revolution. “This is a better way to connect with today’s thirty- and fortysomethings,” she says.

Of course, the Internet attracts scam artists - recently, a woman in Campbell County, Va., allegedly used phony Net postings to scam hundreds of couples seeking to adopt infants.

“Some red flags that people should be aware of are: birth parents who demand monetary support, who refuse medical care, or who are transient or living in motels,” says Christianson.

“Whenever potential adoptive parents and birth parents hook up, they should hire an adoption attorney and/or an adoption social worker in the birth mother’s hometown to assess the situation.  Legitimate adoption professionals are often aware of the current adoption scams."