EAU CLAIRE — At just 2½ years old, Ary Krejchi already has come a long way.

Ary was born in India, where he spent the first 20 months of his life in an orphanage before being adopted by Serena and Jon Krejchi of Eau Claire.

The boy also was born with biliary atresia, a rare liver disease that left him so malnourished he weighed only 11 pounds, had broken bones all over his frail body and had to be held like a baby when the Krejchis welcomed him into their lives.

One year later, after undergoing a liver transplant in September at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, Ary’s transformation is stunning. His weight has more than doubled, his smile is nearly constant and he struts around the family’s living room — still with a helping hand from mom or dad — like he owns the place.

“His personality has really developed since the transplant. He’s a completely different child,” Serena said. “It feels like we’ve had him forever now.”

Revised 'acceptable term' in the Out-of-home placement guideline

If children are removed from home, then according to Dutch law it must be decided for each child within an 'acceptable period' where the child will definitely grow up. This term is further elaborated in the Out-of-home placement guideline. In practice, the wording of the directive sometimes leads to unbalanced decision-making. The three owners of the guideline, the professional associations NIP, NVO and BPSW, and the Netherlands Youth Institute (NJi) delete the current passages in the new version of the guideline, in which the acceptable term is specified.

The revision of this guideline has been in progress since the autumn of 2021. In this review, new insights on the various factors that influence 'the acceptable time frame' will be prioritized. In the meantime, it is important for the application of the directive not to strictly observe the time limits specified in the directive. Joint, careful decision-making is essential, which does justice to the specific situation of the child and the family.

Do not use fixed terms

In the guideline (and substantiation, work cards and information for parents) in various places time limits are mentioned within which decisions about out-of-home placement or back placement should take place. These terms are indicative, i.e. intended as an example. They are not universally applicable. We note that youth professionals apply these terms too strictly in practice. We can imagine that the firm wording of the relevant passages in the directive could lead to a misinterpretation.

GOUDA - There must be an expertise center for adoption. Existing foster care centers can be expanded to include adopted children. In addition, there should be consultation offices specialized in adoption. Only in this way can the problems of adopted children be properly taken care of.

That is the opinion of Prof. RAC Hoksbergen, Emeritus Professor of Adoption at Utrecht University. He will speak this afternoon in Gouda at the autumn meeting of the Adoption Association of the Reformed Gezindte about identity development of adopted children.

Hoksbergen (64) is an authority on adoption in the Netherlands. In the early 1970s, he was one of the founders of the boom in adopting children from abroad. "We were very enthusiastic. We took children from bad circumstances to a country where they were better off. It was good work. In retrospect, we focused too little on the ultimate consequences of an adoption. We also immediately provided aftercare for adoptive parents We had to organize. There was little structure in it. But what do you want, we had nothing."

Adoption became popular. Many children came from countries such as Korea, India and Indonesia. Hoksbergen and his associates were active in what would later become the mediation organization Wereldkinderen. His scientific work at Utrecht University resulted in the Adoption Center - meanwhile closed down by the university. The number of applications for adoption rose to more than 3000 in those years.

The pink clouds around adoption persisted until the early 1980s. "Then there was publicity about adopted children placed at home. That was of course not just like that." Adopted children were found to have problems. Problems with accepting their identity. Who am I? Where do I belong? Who do I look like? Who are my natural parents? Do I have to love my adoptive parents? "It lowers the quality of life if there are no answers to these kinds of questions," said Hoksbergen in his study in Soest.

Outcomes of Open Adoption From Care Book Cover

A new research study conducted by both The Department of Education, University of Oxford, and Barnardos Australia has revealed that children who were adopted had significantly better life outcomes when compared with children that remained in foster care, particularly when it comes to education and employment.

Professor Leon Feinstein, Director of the Rees Centre, Department of Education, at University of Oxford said,

“we are delighted to announce our partnership with Barnardos Australia on the book launch of a major research study on adoption, entitled ‘Outcomes of Open Adoption from Care’. The project, funded by Barnardos (Australia), with research undertaken by Emeritus Professor Harriet Ward and Helen Trivedi at the Rees Centre (Oxford), presents new and vivid findings concerning the extreme vulnerability of children placed for adoption from care, the impact and durability of face-to-face post adoption contact and adult outcomes of adoptees.”

Launched 6th April by Barnardos, this is the first longitudinal study of open adoption undertaken in Australia, examining the long-term outcomes of 210 children adopted through Barnardos between 1987 and 2013. The children in the study were permanently removed from their birth parents and placed in foster care due to severe abuse and neglect. By maintaining “openness” through contact with their birth family, these adopted children formed a healthy sense of identity and experienced greater stability and belonging, for life, compared to those in the unstable foster care system until the age of 18.

Children who have been removed from home should also be able to return to their parents after a longer period of time. The directive that currently often prevents this from happening is being scrapped. Youth protectors can then deal more flexibly with the so-called 'acceptable period for return'.

The change of course of the Netherlands Youth Institute (NJi), which draws up the guidelines together with the professional associations, is important for the approximately 420 children of parents affected by the benefits affair who have been placed out of their homes and still live separately from their parents. A government support team has been available for them since last week. In total, about 46 thousand children live in foster families or institutions in the Netherlands, more than 20 thousand of whom are through the intervention of the juvenile court.

Determine what is possible per family

The new starting point is that it must be determined per family what is possible, without applying a generally applicable strict term any longer. Even before the official new guideline is available, which is expected after the summer, it is already the intention that the acceptable term will be applied less strictly.

The term 'acceptable term' was included in the Civil Code in 2015 to prevent children from being left in uncertainty about where they would grow up for too long after a custodial placement. As a national knowledge centre, the NJi has drawn up two terms based on scientific insights and practical experience: a maximum of six months for very young children up to 5 years old, and a maximum of one year for children aged 5 and older. Although the terms are 'indicative', it also stated firmly: 'If it is not possible to improve the conditions sufficiently within this term, then a permanent custodial placement is necessary.'

Chermaine Leysner’s life changed in 2012, when she received a letter from the Dutch tax authority demanding she pay back her child care allowance going back to 2008. Leysner, then a student studying social work, had three children under the age of 6. The tax bill was over €100,000.

“I thought, ‘Don’t worry, this is a big mistake.’ But it wasn’t a mistake. It was the start of something big,” she said.

The ordeal took nine years of Leysner’s life. The stress caused by the tax bill and her mother’s cancer diagnosis drove Leysner into depression and burnout. She ended up separating from her children’s father. “I was working like crazy so I could still do something for my children like give them some nice things to eat or buy candy. But I had times that my little boy had to go to school with a hole in his shoe,” Leysner said.

Leysner is one of the tens of thousands of victims of what the Dutch have dubbed the “toeslagenaffaire,” or the child care benefits scandal.

In 2019 it was revealed that the Dutch tax authorities had used a self-learning algorithm to create risk profiles in an effort to spot child care benefits fraud.

“Adoptees are told to just be grateful that we were chosen. And yet so many of us are struggling.”

When Alé Cardinalle first met her biological mother and siblings, she was surprised by how familiar their love felt. Born in Brazil, Cardinalle was adopted by a New Jersey couple when she was an infant. On the eve of her 28th birthday, Cardinalle found and contacted her birth mother on Facebook, and the two women arranged a reunion in Brazil.

The flight to Brazil tested Cardinalle’s nerves. She was traveling thousands of miles to visit a home full of strangers in a country she did not remember. “But my mother pulled me into her house and pulled me onto her couch and into her lap, even though I was probably almost twice her size,” Cardinalle tells Teen Vogue, laughing. “She looked at my fingers and looked at my toes and, like, it was just so primal to me. Like how you would look at your baby.”

More family members poured into the living room, half-siblings, and a stepfather who all greeted Cardinalle breathlessly between hugs. “It was just such an abundance of love,” she recalls.

Later, Cardinalle asked the question that had burdened her for entire adult life: Why did her birth mother choose adoption?

Adoption of children from abroad is possible again. A new mediation organization to be set up must ensure that corruption, child trafficking and fraud are eradicated. Moreover, it is always necessary to first look for suitable reception in the country of origin.

Franc Weerwind, Minister for Legal Protection, writes this in a letter to the House. As long as care in one's own environment is not possible, adoption to the Netherlands will remain an option if this is beneficial to the child. Weerwind has decided this after discussions with those involved. The minister is going to flesh out the system even more specifically.

After the damning report of the Joustra Commission, an investigation into abuses in adoptions from 1967 to 1998, all intercountry adoptions were suspended in February 2021. The committee doubted whether an alternative system was possible. Now that a new, centralized system is being set up, experts are wondering: how will the government ensure that abuses are eradicated?

After an adoption stop of a year, children from abroad will soon be allowed to be adopted again under strict conditions. A great relief for Dirk Jan and his husband Christiaan, who have been working on adoption for years. "A lot is still unclear about the new rules, but we hope that we can decorate our children's room soon."

The attic of Dirk Jan (33) and Christiaan (35) has been waiting for years to be transformed into a children's room. "We have already completed the courses and medical examination. Last year we were about to get the green light so that we can be considered for adoption," says Dirk Jan (full name is known to the editors).

But then came that damning report on the adoption system. Due to the abuses, an adoption stop for foreign adoptions was immediately introduced.

Stricter conditions

The procedures for adoptions from abroad will resume in the coming months. However, stricter conditions will be introduced and mediation will be in the hands of a single government organisation. Minister Franc Weerwind (Legal Protection) announced this today.

Finally. The government's long-awaited position is here. The suspension is lifted. There will be 1 intermediary organization. More intensive cooperation with (possibly a limited number of) countries. Goal: even better guarantees. Relief prevails at ANW HQ. Of course there are still many questions and a lot will come to everyone in the near future. But the most important thing: new parents are becoming available for children for whom the biological parents cannot, do not want or are not allowed to care. And that's what we do: we help find parents for children

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