Features

Adoptions Together: serving kids and starting families

BY KERRI FORREST

Calvin Spigner is a single father raising three teenage boys, ages 13, 16, and 19. He admits he has quite an active family. But what makes his family unique is that Spigner adopted his three sons, each at different times, none related to the other by anything but Spigner’s love.

"I just have a heart to get those that nobody wants, and try to make them what [others] said they couldn’t be," Spigner says. "There’s really no preparation, except for having a heart for it, and being willing to take the bumps and the bruises."

Spigner began as a foster parent, mentoring the kids who came to stay with him for short periods of time, but he wanted to do more. He is just one of the hundreds of people in the Washington area that have formed loving, happy adoptive families with the help of the Adoptions Together agency in Silver Spring.

The nonprofit organization’s small New Hampshire Avenue office handles a big job: to bring children and families together in a stable, loving environment. Hundreds of pictures line the walls–children all successfully placed by the agency.

"I wanted to start an organization that would welcome every child regardless of their health, their race, their age, or their circumstance," says Janice Goldwater, founder and executive director.

During her years of observing and working within the child welfare system as a social worker and mental health professional, Goldwater saw a frustrating state-run system fraught with delays, and a private adoption system eased the process but lacked the education and support that adoptive or birth parents needed to make healthy decisions.

"What makes us stand apart is the holistic approach that we take to adoption," Goldwater says.

Since 1990, her organization has placed almost 2000 children–infants, teens, mentally and physically challenged children, and orphans from Eastern Europe, Asia, and Latin America. Adoptions Together also provides a full range of services to children, prospective adoptive parents, and even birth parents facing the decision of putting a child up for adoption.

"There are hundreds of children in the District and Maryland who need to be adopted," Goldwater says. "Many are siblings; all have experienced abuse or neglect; all have had trauma in their lives."

She is particularly concerned about the staggering number of children about to "age out" of DC’s foster care system. She says it was recently reported to Washington, DC’s Committee for Permanent Families for Children that there are more than 900 children in the city’s foster care system slated for "independent living"–making their way on their own as adults.

"The kids...have no roots, no foundation, no stability, no one to turn to, so what are they going to do?" Goldwater says. "It’s not a way to build a healthy society."

Statistics show that foster children are at great risk once they age out of the system. According to a study by the School of Social Work at the University of Wisconsin, 27 percent of males and 10 percent of females were incarcerated within 12 to 18 months of leaving the system. Fifty percent were unemployed, 37 percent had not finished high school, 33 percent received public assistance, and 19 percent of females had given birth to children.

Sebrena McAllister, director of Project If Not Us, an Adoptions Together program studying and promoting adoption in the African-American community, says African-American teenage males are most in need of help.

"What happens is that no one wants to work with that older child–they think it’s too late. So the child may not display any behavioral issues, any emotional issues– they just need a home," McAllister says.

The real challenge is finding the right adoptive parents. Adoptions Together hosts informational meetings for people considering adoption then performs a detailed home study to determine whether the person is really in a position to adopt and what type of child would thrive in that person’s environment.

Goldwater, who adopted a teenage girl two years ago, says its difficult when a child begins to act out, but adoptive parents must understand that the child is expressing pain, and be able to cope with it.

"The bottom line is we are looking for emotionally stable, mature people who are financially able to raise a child," Goldwater says. "And that means that they don’t have to own a house; they can be single or married; they can be traditional families or non-traditional families that may or may not already have children."

Goldwater’s hope is that we begin to understand that anyone can make a difference in a child’s life.

"I want the community to know, so the perceptions can change," she says. "Child-ren who are adopted are just as valuable members of society and families as those that are born into their families."