Adoption Isn’t Likely For Most System Makes It Difficult For Orphans To Find Homes
The babies at the Pucioasa infant orphanage stand smiling, arms up, ever hopeful. Will anyone ever take them home?
Not easily. After 2,900 Romanian children were adopted by United States families in the early 1990s, Romanians closed the chaotic and unregulated baby market that flourished after their 1989 revolution.
The Romanian Committee on Adoption, which centralized and legalized adoptions, didn’t resume taking applications until last year.
But many of the 100,000 children in orphanages still aren’t legally available. Their parents retain rights by visiting once every six months.
Others who are abandoned - on trains, at the orphanage gate and more typically, in maternity wards - must be legally declared free first. The paperwork, including approval of the local county council, can take from nine months to three years.
Since only children living in orphanages can be adopted, some prospective parents are simply unwilling to assume the risk of mental and physical health problems.
Love and care alone cannot help some institutionalized children outgrow behavior problems, developmental delays or the inability to bond, according to studies of Romanian children adopted in 1991.
Victor Groze, a professor of social work at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, says the orphanage children fell into three categories: “resilient rascals,” the 20 percent who thrived both in orphanages and in adopted families; “wounded wonders,” the 60 percent who make tremendous progress within a year; and the 20 percent who look just like the wounded wonders but who never kindle the warmth denied them early in life.
“In a family you get love, in institutions you get tolerance,” said Groze. “In a family you get affection, in institutions you get emotional distance. In a family you get one-on-one attention, in an institution the ratios are 1:8 to 1:35.”
Such research prompted adoption agencies to better prepare parents.
Distraught parents unprepared for long-term problems such as autism, food phobias, learning disabilities and a failure to make emotional attachments formed the Parent Network for the Post-Institutionalized Child, which provides education and support to hundreds of families who adopted Romanian and other Eastern Bloc children.
Millions of dollars in international aid has helped improve Romanian orphanages, but many still mimic hospitals rather than child-care centers. Since all social work schools in Romania were closed in the 1960s, there remains a giant gap in knowledge of child welfare, Groze said.
Holt International Children Services in Eugene, Ore., the country’s largest international adoption agency, operates several Romanian-run programs to train social workers and encourage Romanians themselves to adopt. Nearly 400 children have found homes in Romania through its efforts so far, says Dan Lauer, Romanian program coordinator.
In Romania, the birthrate is dropping and couples are waiting longer to have children. But sex education remains limited and abortion is still the leading method of birth control.
Many other Romanians can’t or won’t adopt. Children are in orphanages in large part because families can’t afford them. It is widely believed most are Gypsies, a distinct minority who live apart from the general population.
“Even people in my church consider us really crazy because we took Cristi (his foster son) from an orphanage,” says Florian Ion, a program coordinator for Northwest Medical Teams, who lives in Targoviste.
Without families, the children are destined to become permanent wards. Released from the orphanage at age 18, a disproportionate number wind up on the streets or in jail.
Lauer says what Romania does in the next five years to help families keep their children and to improve child welfare is critical. “World support of Romanian children is waning,” he said.
Yes, DataTimes