Posts Tagged: Adoption

NY State Legislature Passes New Open Adoption Bill to Protect Children’s Family Bonds

Legislators in New York State are considering passing a bill to ensure that children adopted from foster care can continue to have contact with their parents, even when rights are terminated, if it’s in the child’s best interest. Here, Rise’s Sara Werner, who lost her daughter to adoption but reunified with her son, interviews Amy Mulzer, a staff attorney for law and appeals in the Family Defense Practice at Brooklyn Defender Services:

Shared Grief: If my daughter could know me it would help her understand her own suffering

The day in court that they terminated my parental rights I asked my daughter if I could kiss her. She looked over to check if her foster mother would let her. Then she put her head down. I went and gave her a big kiss on that soft little cheek of hers. Her face lit up. Then her lawyer took her away. It was the last time I saw my daughter.

This was a date I thought … Read More

Poverty and a series of bad decisions led to my daughter’s adoption

In 2005, I fell in love with a woman and moved across the country to be with her.

But when we arrived in California, she and I and her little girl, Casey, were cramped up living with friends. Eventually, we got our own place, but it was hard to make ends meet. I’d earned my associate’s degree in horticulture but couldn’t find anything in landscaping. After a while I was willing to work any job, including … Read More

Influencing Adoption

I froze. My head was pounding and I felt like that should have been my last day working in child welfare. I just wanted to go home and lock myself in my room.

I was in Bronx Family Court, being yelled at because a parent on my caseload had missed a visit, even though up until that point, she had always made all her visits.

“What happened? Why didn’t this visit happen?” the judge asked, over and … Read More

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