Description
Intended Audience:
This course is designed for adoption professionals and pre/post-adoptive families.
1- Hour Online Audio Course (Certificate of completion will be immediately awarded upon successful completion of the course including passing a 10-question quiz with a grade of 80%)
Course Overview:
Adopting a relative can have its own special considerations. What are these challenges, and how do you overcome them? This course is an interview with Robin Sizemore, Executive Director of Hopscotch Adoptions, an international adoption agency with an active kinship adoption program; Lorrin Pekarske an adoption social worker for the Catholic Charities supporting all types of adoptive families, including relative adoptions; and Tim Eirich, an adoption attorney with Grob & Eirich, LLC, specializes in adoption, child welfare cases, and assisted reproduction, and a member of the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys.
This course includes:
- Domestic Kinship Adoption
- Without Social Services involvement. With social services/foster care involvement.
- Advantages and disadvantages of getting social services involved.
- Is it possible to get an adoption subsidy from foster care for adopting a child through kinship adoption with special needs?
- Differences between permanent guardianship/custody and adoption?
- Should you legally adopt your grandchild or niece or nephew, or have guardianship?
- International Kinship Adoption
- Changes in how international kinship adoptions are processed.
- Universal Accreditation Act
- Independent relinquishment of your relative vs. child being in state care.
- Can you adopt your relative’s child if he is living in a safe place, such as with a grandmother?
- Does it matter how close the relative is: niece vs. cousin?
- Is it possible to live in the country for 2 years to avoid?
- Do you need to use an adoption agency in the US or can you do an independent adoption
- How to find an adoption agency in the US that does kinship adoptions.
- How much does it cost to do a kinship adoption from another country?
- Special Issues with Kinship Adoption
- We think in terms of best interest of the child and we usually assume best interest is for the child to be placed with relatives. Is it?
- Family involvement & creating boundaries
- Navigating openness in relative/kinship adoptions
- Lack of preparation or perceived need for education.
- People stepping up to adopt a relative’s child were not actively pursuing adoption before and may not be prepared for raising a child who has experienced trauma.
Please contact the Education Director for technical assistance or disability accommodations.
Image credit: Philippe Put
