New Project & Vacancy! Human Rights in Alternative Care

The goal of drastically reducing numbers of children living in institutions around the world has been a key focus of coherent efforts to realise children’s rights for over a decade, with important advances being made. 

Progress is visible through strengthened international standards and greater attention by the Committee on the Rights of the Children, alongside changes in domestic legislation, systems and practices, as well as greater attention to the voices of children and adults impacted by the harms of institutionalized alternative care.

Together, these are all helping to strengthen the fulfilment of children’s rights, not least through greater promotion of positive parenting approaches and wider kinship family support, keeping families together safely, and nurturing quality, community-based alternative care, close to home.

The Gaps

Khammam: District Collector VP Gautham on Monday praised an issueless Italian couple for coming forward to adopt an orphaned child. A Babu from Khammam district childcare center was adopted by them, after all legal formalities, the Collector informed. Gautham stated that children who are below 18 years and are orphans, abandoned or have poor parents can be brought under the adoption process and the adoption process is done by the District Collector as per the rules. He informed that childless couples can approach officials through the website www.cara.nic.in. They can also contact anganwadi teachers, district child welfare department, Sisugruhas to learn about the adoption process. District Welfare Officer G Jyoti, DCPO Vishnu Vandana, Protection Officer Soni and others were present.

 

The petition was filed by the son of the deceased's second wife, who had moved the court after a corporation rejected his application saying that he had not filed a valid succession certificate.

New Delhi: The Chhattisgarh high court has held that an ‘illegitimate’ son is also entitled to be considered for a job appointment on compassionate grounds after the death of the father, the Times of India reported.

The petition was filed by Piyush Kumar Anchal, who had moved the court after Chhattisgarh State Warehousing Corporation rejected his application on the ground that he had not filed a valid succession certificate. However, in his petition, Piyush said that his mother’s name was recorded in the nomination form submitted by his father.

According to the petition, Mohan Lal Anchal, the petitioner’s father, worked as a junior assistant at the Pratappur branch of the warehousing corporation and died due to COVID-19 infection. Anchal moved the high court, saying that he was the son of Mohan’s second wife and hence, applied for a job appointment on compassionate grounds.

Suresh Kumar Anchal, the son of Mohan’s first wife, had also claimed compassionate appointment.

When he was an attorney and administrator with the Florida Department of Children and Families in Tallahassee, Stephen Pennypacker helped write the new rules used by investigators that include gathering more information from families to assess their children’s safety.

Since returning to Gainesville as president and CEO of the Partnership for Strong Families in April 2014, he is now implementing those changes on the ground level.

If done right, he said the system will remove fewer children who don’t need to be removed from their families, will remove the right children and provide the right services to families “to teach them how to make their kids safe permanently so we can get out of their lives.”

The Partnership for Strong Families is one of 18 nonprofit organizations around the state that contracts with DCF to manage foster care and adoption services through 1998 legislation to privatize the foster care system. The organization — with headquarters in Gainesville — covers the 13 counties in the third and eighth judicial circuits in North Central Florida with 105 employees and another 150 subcontracted case managers. Most of the partnership’s $32 million annual budget comes from state and federal funding.

Pennypacker said the partnership takes over cases referred from DCF and determines what services and counseling families need. In cases where children are removed from the home, most are placed with relatives and family friends. Others are placed in foster care. After about a year, the partnership and courts may decide to terminate parental rights, leading to the potential for adoption.

Today, October 9, 2019 we just received an email from the Department of State which said the following:

Shortly after the Symposium, I informed the Department that I have accepted a new position with another federal agency, and this week will be my last in the Office of Children’s Issues. LaTina Marsh has assumed acting as Adoption Division Chief.  Being able to hold a Symposium that brought all voices from the adoption community together was a perfect way to mark the end of my tenure here. I have enjoyed working with all of you and wish you the very best as you continue your efforts on behalf of children and families.

Sincerely,

Trish Maskew
The Office of Children’s Issues

On July 28, 2017, the Department of State designated Intercountry Adoption Accreditation and Maintenance Entity, Inc., (IAAME) as an accrediting entity (AE) under the Intercountry Adoption Act of 2000 (IAA) in accordance with 22 CFR Part 96.  The designation is for a period of five years.

IAAME is the second designated AE, joining the Council on Accreditation, whose designation was renewed July 11, 2016 for an additional five years.  IAAME’s responsibilities as an AE will commence upon:  1) the Department of State’s approval of systems, procedures, and a fee schedule that will be coordinated as necessary to ensure consistency in accreditation systems and procedures used by both AEs; and 2) the Department of State’s determination of jurisdictional parameters. 

The Office of Children’s Issues will provide additional information as it becomes available.

The Daily, 2001

Directors of Adoptions and maternity hospitals involved in the sale of children

The traffickers' technique says it all about their "humanitarian" intentions: the Romanian government takes care of children institutionalized by the Romanian Committee for Adoptions (CRA). According to some provisions of the CRA Regulation, a foundation for child protection cannot mediate an adoption, unless it is accredited by it. In order to obtain a child without any problems, the mobsters arranged a medical certificate for him to take out the sick child, and then to ask him from the CRA, as "nominally distributed". This method caused a scandal in January 1999 in which two foundations were involved, "Irene" and "Stuart", foundations founded by the lawyer Elena Bustea. She obtained several copies for adoption, based on such certificates, but the investigation launched in the case of the two foundations did not prove that any illegalities were committed. Only some officers who investigated the case confessed to the press, that Bustea's two organizations were involved in illegal adoptions, but would benefit from the protection of important politicians and senior officers from the Ministry of Interior.

In August 1996, 60-year-old Elisabeta Amzar, head of the Newborn Department at Caritas Hospital in Bucharest, along with her subordinates, Laura Gheorghe and Ecaterina Balaceanu, were charged with mediating an illegal adoption. Florin Burcea, a child who was born on August 21, 1996 at the "Caritas" hospital, was abandoned in the hospital by his mother, Daniela Burcea because he did not benefit from material funds to support him. After the child was abandoned, Elisabeta Amzar and Laura Gheorghe issued a false certificate, but with the same registration number as the original one, which they sent to the Guardianship Authority. The personal data of the natural mother were not specified in the forgery prepared by the two, and the signature of the doctor on duty, over which the initials were also applied, was also forged. The nurse Ecaterina Balaceanu concluded the clinical observation sheet of the newborn, erroneously passing the mother's home and "forgetting" the mention of the data from her identity card. Based on these documents, Florin Burcea was adopted by an Italian family living in Switzerland, without the consent of his natural mother.

The three then came to the attention of the Criminal Police Bureau within Section 10, being investigated at large.

Varadaan Indian Association For Promotion Of Adoption And Child Welfar

Varadaan Indian Association For Promotion Of Adoption And Child Welfar is a non-profit organisation, established in 1991 that works primarily in the domain of Education. Its primary office is in Nagpur, Maharashtra.

• FCRA

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AT THE TABLE Cooking and dining for hours. AD Haagsche Courant joins fellow locals every week for a snack, a drink and a good conversation. This week with Varsha Gerritsen (30) from The Hague, for whom Indian food is not only tasty, she also needs it. Her body responds better to turmeric and lentils than to Dutch dairy.

The smells that haunt Varsha Gerritsen's hall already reveal the type of cuisine she is serving this evening: Indian. A mix of garlic, ginger and slivers of onion is simmering in a pan on a separate burner in her student room in The Hague.

Chili peppers
"Garlic and ginger are kind of my basic ingredients," says 30-year-old Varsha. "I use them for almost every Indian dish. Not that it is the same everywhere in India. That differs per region. But in the In the region where my roots are located, garlic, turmeric, ginger and chili peppers are common. As a result, they are used for many different dishes. You carry something like that with you from your youth."

Varsha came to the Netherlands at the age of 2. A new country with a completely different food culture. “Lots of dairy. Something that Dutch people experience as healthy. But for me this was not always the case. My body is not built for the large amounts of dairy that are used here."

Curry
Varsha couldn't get used to the Dutch way of cooking. It was therefore soon time for her to take up the cooking utensils herself and delve into flavors and products that her body wanted: ginger, garlic and those chopped onions. Her interest in Indian cuisine was sparked.

Tarka dahl

Ingredients for 2 people
• 150 g red split lentils
• 50 g mung dhal
• 500 ml of water
• 1 tsp grated ginger
• 1 tsp grated garlic
• 1/4 tsp ground turmeric
• 1 tsp ground chili powder
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp oil
• 1 onion in cubes
• 1/4 tsp mustard seeds
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 1 tomato in cubes
• 2 tbsp finely chopped coriander

Preparation: Boil the red lentils, mung dahl, ginger, garlic, turmeric, chili powder and salt in the water for 20 minutes, with the lid on the pan. Mash the mixture until it is a creamy soup. Add salt. Put oil in another pan and fry the onion with the mustard seeds and tomato for 2 minutes. Pour the tarka over the lentils and garnish with coriander.

On September 29, 2021 from 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., SSI France is organizing its fourth webinar on the theme of tracing origins for people adopted internationally.

This webinar will be an opportunity to review the support and support that the SSI can offer to adoptees in this process and to present our RACINE project, financially supported by the International Adoption Mission of the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs.

Here is the complete program:

– Opening by Sandrine Pepit, Director of SSI France
– Introductory remarks by the Mission of International Adoption
– Presentation of SSI/CIR publications on the search for origins by Juliette Duchesne – Roulez, Children's Rights Officer at SSI/CIR
– Presentation of psychological aspects of the search for origins by Dr. Fanny Cohen-Herlem, consulting psychiatrist at the SSI/CIR
– Presentation of the SSI methodology in the management of origins search files by Albert Mukwiye, social worker at the SSI Switzerland
– Presentation of the RACINE project, by Jimmy Messineo, coordinator of SSI France
– Question/answer time