Re: “Adopting and adapting,” Feb. 24.
The articles on fostering and adoption issues raise more questions than they answer.
Both pieces correctly identified that stability and security for children is the goal. When this goal can be achieved through adoption or fostering, it does not matter which label is used. There are countless stories of foster parents who raised children as if their own and their support lasted well into adulthood.
Also, there is a certain failure rate in adoption homes, especially when older children are adopted. There is no point in removing a child from a foster home with which it is bonded to a potentially insecure adoption placement.
The greatest hazard to foster-home stability often comes from ill-judged removal by social workers. The B.C. Federation of Foster Parent Associations reported to the Gove Inquiry that 98 per cent of appeals of foster-home closures are rejected. Unless the ministry gets it right 98 per cent of the time, many children are moved unnecessarily.
In the early 1970s, the Victoria Children’s Aid Society offered its long-term foster parents a special contract that would guarantee not to remove the children. A proposal was made to government to write this into law so that a removal would require a court process, as with natural children. The government rejected it, but it could be reconsidered.
Ray Ferris
Victoria
