NEW JERSEY
Fostering a new relationship
Residents
share their adoption/foster experiences
There are a lot of good kids in the system you form a
bond and it works and youre happy, said Diane Dragone of Jersey City
last week. She and husband Tom Horan found two siblings through New
Jerseys foster care/adoption system about seven years ago who are now
their 15-year-old daughter Gigi and 16-year-son Danny.
Dragone, who runs the Kennedy School of Dance in the Jersey City Heights, and Horan, a longtime videographer who works in the Jersey City public school system, married a little later in life and decided to adopt to create a family. At first, they explored adopting a child from overseas. We looked at the foreign adoption scenario, but at the time, there were over 6,000 children in the New Jersey foster care system with around 1,000 eligible for adoption, Dragone said.
After a year and half, Dragone and Horan got to experience what many families are experiencing during what is officially National Adoption Month being able to adopt the child or children whom they want to raise as their own.
Official statistics currently list over 1,600 children in New Jersey awaiting adoption through the states Division of Youth Family Services. However, the process can be intense and sometimes long for adoptive parents. There are also complications including the fact that the childrens biological parents may eventually want their child back, and the fact that some children come out of abusive homes.
Approximately 220 children in foster care were scheduled to be adopted during a three-day period from this past Thursday through Saturday in various counties as part of National Adoption Month, including 20 at an event Friday in Jersey City.
Long process
The pre-adoption process is an intense one. It involves 27
hours of training, individual interviews and home visits, providing
references, an approval process, getting licensed, and then the
placement of a child.
Dragone said the process, at times as difficult, was worth it. We knew we wanted to adopt, that we werent going to just bring children into our lives and then after two [or] three years say, Oh you have to go, Dragone said. That was not going to happen.
Dragone said in the case of Gigi and Danny, both were removed from their home due to neglect and abuse. They were returned to their parents, only to be taken out a second time when the parents failed to comply with court guidelines. They give parents many steps to reunite with their children, but there is a disciplined process that they have to follow, and while some parents are very good at doing that, some others arent, Dragone said.
Adopting a defiant stance
One Downtown Jersey City family has served as foster parents
for the past five years, having raised several children at different
times. However, they say that the 3-year-old boy currently in their care
for the past 18 months may be the last child they will foster. It is not
the boy himself, an infectiously energetic child whom they dote on, who
is the problem, according to the wife. Instead, it is the possibility
that the child will be reunited with his biological parents, whose
arrests on drug possession led to the boy ending up with the Downtown
couple.
The father was supposed to be serving 10 years, but has gotten out in less than two, and the mom, who is supposed to be in rehab, instead walks out, and now the child could be back in their custody, the wife said. Its what I called the fiasco of good intentions and I dont understand why.
The husband said the judge overseeing reunification of the boy and his biological parents is leaning in the direction of returning him to his natural parents. However, the wife said DYFS has been supportive of the boy being placed with her husband and her. He has a chance with us, and he has bonded with us and we love him, and yet we as foster parents dont count, the husband said. This is a safe haven.
The wife said the boy has seen his natural parents in recent months as part of the reunification process and then comes back asking if he will stay with his foster parents.
The reason for their grave concern is the past experience of having a previous foster child in their care being taken away from them before they could adopt. The wife said that the legal fight to keep that child nearly destroyed her.
In most cases, foster parents are next of kin or people who have some connection to the biological parents, and they have custody of the child or children until parents relinquish their rights, allowing for adoption. Also, DYFS can seek to terminate the rights of the biological parents, which would allow for a couple who are not next-of-kin to officially adopt.
Ricardo Kaulessar
22 November 2009
