Saks Pioneers Newborn Nursery Adoption Centers

Last month the Middleton Doll Company announced it will expand its Newborn Nursery® Adoption Centers into five additional Saks Department Stores.

"The expansion of this unique award-winning retail concept into additional Saks Incorporated stores will enable many more young girls to experience the 'adoption' of their very own lifelike baby doll in a simulated hospital nursery setting," said George R. Schonath, president and chief executive officer of The Middleton Doll Company.

With chubby cheeks, bright eyes, soft hair and an incredibly lifelike face, the Newborn Nursery baby dolls are so realistic they look like a real baby. The Newborn Nursery centers provide the perfect setting for the "adoption" experience.

Once a young girl looks through the Newborn Nursery hospital viewing window and selects her very own Newborn Nursery baby doll from a wide variety of hair, skin and eye color combinations, a store associate dressed like a nurse helps her complete official Newborn Nursery "adoption" papers.

The parent-to-be must promise to read stories to her new baby doll and take her to the park. And of course, the parent-to-be can name her baby doll whatever she likes. Once the "adoption" certificate is complete, the parent-to-be dons a hospital gown and watches the "nurse" carefully carry her baby doll out of her crib to a changing table for a baby doll check-up.

The new parent-to-be is given careful instructions on how to properly care for her baby doll while the "nurse" checks the baby doll's "heartbeat" and powders the real diaper. Once the "nurse" determines the baby doll is healthy enough to be "adopted," the parent-to-be is able to hold her new baby doll for the first time.

No word on whether adoption subsidy or post-adoption services are available. Perhaps Saks should team up with the Child Welfare League of America to place REAL foster children into these nurseries! Adoption.com could sell keychains and fine art reprints. Shoppers would enjoy specials and periodic markdowns, 10% off coupons and special two for one deals. The nurse would surely be more efficient than our nation's family court system in finalizing the adoptions. The possibilities are endless. I'm betting a franchise of this operation will reduce the adoption backlog to zero. Wal-Mart anyone?

Shared Custody Battle Goes Federal

Last week a federal lawsuit was filed against the state of Pennsylvania by the Indiana Civil Rights Council and like-minded groups such as the American Coalition for Fathers and Children. These and similar organizations plan to sue all 50 states and U.S. territories. At least 40 suits have already been filed, according to the Council.

The lawsuits use a wide range of constitutional grounds to argue that a child's parents both have an equal right to custody and directly challenge the commonly utilized legal standard known as "the best interest of the child."

The lawsuits seek $1 million in damages for any plaintiffs who sign on to each class action, meaning the potential damages run into the trillions nationwide. But what the groups really want are changes in the laws to provide a "presumptive standard" that physical custody should be split 50-50 unless one parent can prove that there's a good reason for a different arrangement.

Legal custody, which gives both parents a say in issues such as religion, health and education, can be shared equally even when physical custody is not.

But many of the experts say legislating a 50-50 standard is a bad idea. What do you think?

Pepe Le Pew? The Commission's Report on Children in Foster Care

In late May the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care released its final report. The Commission "was charged to develop a practical set of policy recommendations to reform federal child welfare financing and strengthen court oversight of child welfare cases."

I must admit that I was and continue to be a bit skeptical about the Commission and its underlying premise. Who exactly charged the Commission with this mission? Who identified "child welfare financing" and "court oversight" as the critical issues facing child welfare and foster care?

The Commission was premised on the notion that "current federal funding mechanisms for child welfare encourage an over-reliance on foster care at the expense of other services to keep families safely together and to move children swiftly and safely from foster care to permanent families, whether their birth families or a new adoptive family or legal guardian."

The Commission also surmised that "longstanding structural issues in the judicial system limit the ability of the courts to fulfill their shared obligation to protect children from harm and move children safely and appropriately through the system to safe, permanent homes."

The Executive Summary concludes "reform in these two areas is a critical first step to solving many other problems that plague the child welfare system."

Well . . . what do you think? Is federal child welfare financing and court oversight the two lead issues in your town, county or state? Read on for the key components of the Commission's recommendations. And stay tuned because next week I will tackle the Commission's recommendations on courts and child representation.

The key components of the Commission’s financing recommendations are:

• Preserving federal foster care maintenance and adoption assistance as an entitlement and expanding it to all children, regardless of their birth families’ income and including Indian children and children in the U.S. territories;

• Providing federal guardianship assistance to all children who leave foster care to live with a permanent legal guardian when a court has explicitly determined that neither reunification nor adoption are feasible permanence options;

• Helping states build a range of services from prevention, to treatment, to postpermanence by (1) creating a flexible, indexed Safe Children, Strong Families Grant from what is currently included in Title IV-B and the administration and training components of Title IV-E; and (2) allowing states to “reinvest” federal and state foster care dollars into other child welfare services if they safely reduce their use of foster care;

• Encouraging innovation by expanding and simplifying the waiver process and providing incentives to states that (1) make and maintain improvements in their child welfare workforce and (2) increase all forms of safe permanence; and

• Strengthening the current Child and Family Services Review process to increase states’ accountability for improving outcomes for children.

The Commission’s court recommendations call for:

• Adoption of court performance measures by every dependency court to ensure that they can track and analyze their caseloads, increase accountability for improved outcomes for children, and inform decisions about the allocation of court resources;

• Incentives and requirements for effective collaboration between courts and child welfare agencies on behalf of children in foster care;

• A strong voice for children and parents in court and effective representation by better trained attorneys and volunteer advocates;

• Leadership from Chief Justices and other state court leaders in organizing their court systems to better serve children, provide training for judges, and promote more effective standards for dependency courts, judges, and attorneys.

From the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care Executive Summary

Pregnant by God or Blessed for Adoption?

First there was adoption music, then adoption sermons, even adoption recipes, jewelry and an ISP. Adoption.com is a virtual adoption marketplace; everything adoption is for sale except the children.

Then the National Center for Lesbian Rights sued Adoption.com for discriminating against same-sex couples.

The lawsuit alleges that among other for-profit services, Adoption.com permits prospective adoptive parents to post their personal profiles in hopes of connecting with potential birth mothers. They will not, however, permit same-sex couples to post their profiles.

Now adoption art has surfaced on the Adoption.com website which provides interesting insight. From God's Hands, To My Hands, To Yours is an "adoption fine art reprint" (now on sale) depicting a bearded god blessing the relinquishment of a cherubic baby from a smiling teenage girl to a loving Anglo Saxon heterosexual couple.

The original art by Dan Lewis is ranked one star by the majority of purchasers, most of whom found it offensive. Not to worry, however, adoption DNA testing, also available at Adoption.com, should resolve any issues about the angelic birth depicted in From God's Hands. If only the Kenyan miracle babies had this testing. Gilbert Deya would soon be out of business! (See Children's Law Blog entry Pregnant by Jesus or Abducted for Adoption).

No word from Adoption.com's content providers which include the well-respected National Center for Adoption Law & Policy and Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute

Confidential Child Welfare Records Released on the Internet

In another black eye for Florida's child-welfare agency, officials acknowledged that confidential records for nearly 4,000 abused and neglected children were available on the Internet until last week.

The files were accessible on the Web site of Kids Central, a privately run child welfare agency. They included the names of foster children, birth dates, Social Security numbers, photographs and case histories. They even provided directions and maps to children's foster homes.

Kids Central began phasing in the computer system, called CoBRIS, around April or May. It was designed to let private caseworkers access the state's child welfare computer system, called HomeSafenet, using the Internet.

The confidential information was available because computer help desk officials allowed all support requests to be viewed online, without passwords. Many of the requests came from caseworkers who had trouble gaining access to HomeSafenet. Some of the replies included user names and passwords to access the confidential files.