– ‘Child Care’ welcomes new Adoption Board

By Telesha Ramnarine

THE newly appointed Adoption Board will not only be overlooking the adoption process, but will also take on the role of advocacy in an effort to find permanent homes for hundreds of children who are still in institutionalised care.

The Board, which comes under the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security, held its first meeting earlier this week and immediately got the ball rolling by examining some of the adoption cases that have been on hold for years now.

One of the top priorities for the Board is to assist the Childcare and Protection Agency (CCPA) in the process of ensuring that children are in stable and safe environments, which includes adoptive care.

Adoption is a legal process and the Board will overlook to see that it was done in the best interest and welfare of the child. After reports are prepared and the court gets the first order, the Board will look to see that the process was completed properly before giving its permission.

The final person to give approval for the adoption would be the Chief Justice who can refuse and send back the case to the Board if she is unsatisfied with the details. The Board sits once a month to review all the cases that are brought before it before granting approval for children to be adopted.

Explaining one of the immediate tasks of the new Board, Head of the CCPA, Ann Greene, told this publication, on Friday, that those adoptions that have been on hold for a very long time will have to come before the Board.

“The adoption of children has to be done before a certain age, so we have to look at all of those pending we have where the children will run out of the age. For international adoption, the children have to be under 16 years old.”

According to her, over 500 children are currently in institutional care at the various children’s homes and orphanages across the country. “The institution is no place for a child. So if these children cannot return home, we have to get a permanency plan for them. If a child doesn’t have a family, the state’s responsibility is to provide one for them. So the only way we can do so is through adoption.”

Explaining the difference with foster care, she said: “This is temporary care; that’s a substitute family, but for a short time. If a child is to get a permanent family, it’s through adoption. Everyone wants to adopt a baby but we have a lot of older children in care that needs a family or else they will age out of the system without a family and that’s not very nice… that you will go out into the world at 18 and you don’t have a family.”

A child should only stay in institutional care for four months; yet there are those who are in such care for the past five years, Greene pointed out.
Meanwhile, the Board members are Anya Rahaman-Persaud, Chairperson; Subhadra Sukhai; Anuradha Persaud; Vanessa Benn; Sarah Ibrahim; Dwayne Adams; Sylvia Conway and Anne Greene, Director of CPA, an ex-Officio member/Secretary.