CANADA
'Daring' project aims to promote older adoptions
Two adoption groups are hoping that a portrait series of Ottawa youths in foster care will help abolish the stigma that often prevents older children from finding permanent homes. The Heart Gallery of Ottawa – a collaborative effort between the Adoption Council of Canada and the Children's Aid Society of Ottawa (CAS) – opens today on Parliament Hill.
The exhibit features images of 18 area children between the ages of four and 15, donated by Ottawa photographer Christine Tripp. To protect their identities, each youth has chosen a pseudonym. Last names are excluded. The travelling exhibit, a Canadian first, is modelled after similar campaigns in the U.S. to more aggressively help increase recruitment rates for older children and teens.
The exhibit is being launched just as a report by the Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies was released Wednesday saying more needs to be done to improve the well-being of children in care. The report calls for improvement in three areas: services for Aboriginal children in care; Ontario's adoption system; and programs to help children in long-term care reach their full potential.
Provincewide, there are 9,200 children and youths searching for a permanent homes and nationwide, there are 30,000. In Ottawa, there are currently 97 children and youths looking for permanent families, said Barbara MacKinnon, executive director of the Ottawa CAS. "Most people, when they think about adoption they think about babies, but in fact our need is higher for families who are willing to adopt older children and even teens," said Laura Eggertson, a council board member and volunteer who worked on the gallery. Eggertson herself has adopted older youths, ages eight and nine, and said the experience is highly rewarding.
Talks between the council (which spearheaded the gallery idea) and the CAS began last fall, and the project got off the ground in January.
Adoption agencies are protective of the identities of children in their care, but both Eggertson and MacKinnon said more aggressive work needs to be done to promote adoptive causes. "It is daring from the perspective of many of the children's aid societies," Eggertson said of the gallery project. But she is hopeful that others will pursue similar projects. All 18 children taking part were approached by their social workers and made their own decisions to participate, Eggertson said. They chose their pseudonyms, helped to write their profiles, and were made aware that being featured might not lead to a permanent home.
The youths will not attend the launch. Instead, a 5:30 p.m. panel discussion will feature other young people in foster care, as well as youths who have been adopted and Crown wards (people who grew up in foster care and graduated from the system).
The photos will also be shown at the council's website, adoption.ca.
Kristy Nease
15 April 2010
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/life/Daring+project+aims+promote+older+adoptions/2908269/story.html
