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This week is National Adoption Awareness Week. I'm guessing most of you didn't know that. After all, it's not like it was widely publicised. There was a bit of a headline grab from Deborra-Lee Furness, who spoke at the National Press Club on the difficulties of adopting children from overseas, mind you. It made for a thoughtful human interest piece. All these children, in terrible circumstances all over the world, and all these prospective parents just waiting to take them into their homes - and yet it's so hard to adopt them under Australia's laws.
I watched Furness at the Press Club, and saw an interview with her on Sky News. There's no doubt she believed passionately in her cause - it wasn't just a way to get some good publicity by cashing in on the apparent fad in Hollywood for adopting kids from third world countries. But it got me thinking. All this focus on adopting from overseas obscures the utter heart-breaking mess that are Australia's domestic adoption laws.
For a start, every State has its own set of legislation and guidelines. In some states, adoptions are done the old-fashioned way: the birth parent never knows who's bringing up their child, and never sees them again unless that child wants to track them down after their 18th birthday via a private registry. In Victoria, so-called 'open' adoption is the rule: the birth parent sets out their preferred criteria in adoptive parents, meets with them beforehand, and has regular access with the child. That sounds much more compassionate all round, but it's a deeply flawed system.
I speak from experience.
My older children, triplets, were adopted out when they were just under 12 months old. This came after a cascade of intervention from the Department of Human Services which was so streamlined that, in retrospect, I wondered if there was a checklist being followed by the caseworkers. First an offer of respite care, then a weekend's respite, then a week with a foster family, then a couple of months with my family. Then came the ultimatum. Take them back in the next 24 hours, regardless of my living circumstances or health, agree to have them adopted, or have them taken away and never see them again.
I opted for what seemed to be the best choice at the time - adoption under Victoria's 'open adoption' scheme. A new case-worker came on board, to help me fill out a form listing my preferred criteria for the children's new family - their religious belief, their location, their attitude towards queer sexuality, etc. I tried to balance my concerns with fairness - asking for an open mind on all religions, an accepting attitude towards queer sexualities, living in the greater Melbourne area, that sort of thing. The case-worker took that form away and came back with three families. Not one fulfilled the majority of my preferred criteria. For example, two were practising Christian families, and one lived in rural north-west Victoria. When I rejected them, I was told that they were my only choices, decided by DHS, and that if I didn't select one, the choice would be made for me. No further investigation would be done.
Again, I chose the best outcome out of a group of bad choices. I met with the prospective parents, who seemed friendly and enthusiastic about the open adoption scheme. They agreed to my visiting four times a year, and exchanging letters and photos. DHS informed me that the first few visits would be supervised, but then the Department would step out and the family and I would work together in the future.
That was the plan. The reality was very different.
Trying to arrange access was always a fraught process. I was forced to rely entirely on the DHS worker, who often did not pass on to the family my requests for a visit. Actually being with the family was nothing short of distressing, as we struggled to adjust to the situation. No counselling was ever offered to me, though the adoptive family were given a great deal of support.
And then things took a turn for the worse. The family started to make excuse to deny me access. Though I had insisted on visits being part of the legal adoption order, I was unable to enforce that order. In four years, I saw my children twice. My complaints to DHS were met with declarations of impotence - there was nothing the worker could do, apparently. Consulting a solicitor didn't help, either. The laws were in such a sorry state that there was little way of enforcing that legal order.
As the years wore on, it got worse and worse. The family refused to allow me direct contact - everything had to be done with DHS as an intermediary. The access stopped altogether, and for months the DHS worker would not even return my calls. Finally, the worker and her supervisor turned up on my doorstep, and informed me that the family had 'relinquished' two of the children, who had been placed in foster care. Two months ago. I hadn't been told because - despite legal orders - I didn't have the 'right' to know if the family explicitly said they didn't want me to be told.
My parents immediately offered to have the two children - now nearly 11 - stay with them, as I had neither space nor the financial ability to care for them myself. We went to court for that, where the Magistrate repeatedly stressed the ridiculous and confusing nature of the laws - which, even now, allowed the adoptive parents a say in what happened to these children that they had told DHS were effectively 'orphaned'. We won that court date, but I'll never forget the Magistrate's puzzlement and frustration.
The two who went to live with my parents started talking - and they unfolded a tale of emotional and physical abuse that horrified me. This was a family that had supposedly been vetted thoroughly by DHS, who were presented to me as an ideal choice - and I'd taken the Department at its word. I immediately contacted DHS, and told them I was worried about the third child. The Department's response was that, unless contacted by someone 'in the child's life', they could not do anything other than request to see the child. The parents were free to refuse - and they did.
I fought for two years to even see my child, while my other two were under care of counsellors. In the end, that child took matters into their own hands, and ran away to be with their siblings. We informed DHS and the police that my parents were happy to care for all of them, and for once, the parents didn't fight.
But in all of this, there was nothing I could do. I could pass on the terrible stories of the abuse meted out by these adoptive parents. I could plead with DHS to intervene, to at least contact the teachers at their school. I could write letters begging the adoptive parents to let me have access, or at least to let the DHS worker in the door. I did all of those things, and they were all utterly useless. The adoptive parents were aided and abetted by the system.
My children are now healthy adults with their own lives. Our family are committed to each other, even though we are thousands of miles apart. All of this is not because of Victoria's adoption system, but despite it. And we all have scars.
Looking back now, it seems as though the decision to institute 'open adoption' was little more than someone's thought bubble. In theory, the idea that a child can have access to both birth and adoptive parents has much to recommend it. The reality is that there is no support for birth parents, that court orders are not worth the paper they're written on, and the screening process for adoptive parents is sorely in need of a complete overhaul. And that's just for a start.
Children deserve to be protected by the State, not allowed to suffer abuse while it turns a blind eye or throws up its hands in defeat.
This is only my story. I know it's happened to others, who have contacted me in the past, but it's not my place to tell their stories here. But in National Adoption Awareness Week, I wanted to tell my story. While we think about how to make it easier for people to adopt children from overseas, we also need to make sure that our laws are uniform across the States, compassionate - and above all, that they work.
I watched Furness at the Press Club, and saw an interview with her on Sky News. There's no doubt she believed passionately in her cause - it wasn't just a way to get some good publicity by cashing in on the apparent fad in Hollywood for adopting kids from third world countries. But it got me thinking. All this focus on adopting from overseas obscures the utter heart-breaking mess that are Australia's domestic adoption laws.
For a start, every State has its own set of legislation and guidelines. In some states, adoptions are done the old-fashioned way: the birth parent never knows who's bringing up their child, and never sees them again unless that child wants to track them down after their 18th birthday via a private registry. In Victoria, so-called 'open' adoption is the rule: the birth parent sets out their preferred criteria in adoptive parents, meets with them beforehand, and has regular access with the child. That sounds much more compassionate all round, but it's a deeply flawed system.
I speak from experience.
My older children, triplets, were adopted out when they were just under 12 months old. This came after a cascade of intervention from the Department of Human Services which was so streamlined that, in retrospect, I wondered if there was a checklist being followed by the caseworkers. First an offer of respite care, then a weekend's respite, then a week with a foster family, then a couple of months with my family. Then came the ultimatum. Take them back in the next 24 hours, regardless of my living circumstances or health, agree to have them adopted, or have them taken away and never see them again.
I opted for what seemed to be the best choice at the time - adoption under Victoria's 'open adoption' scheme. A new case-worker came on board, to help me fill out a form listing my preferred criteria for the children's new family - their religious belief, their location, their attitude towards queer sexuality, etc. I tried to balance my concerns with fairness - asking for an open mind on all religions, an accepting attitude towards queer sexualities, living in the greater Melbourne area, that sort of thing. The case-worker took that form away and came back with three families. Not one fulfilled the majority of my preferred criteria. For example, two were practising Christian families, and one lived in rural north-west Victoria. When I rejected them, I was told that they were my only choices, decided by DHS, and that if I didn't select one, the choice would be made for me. No further investigation would be done.
Again, I chose the best outcome out of a group of bad choices. I met with the prospective parents, who seemed friendly and enthusiastic about the open adoption scheme. They agreed to my visiting four times a year, and exchanging letters and photos. DHS informed me that the first few visits would be supervised, but then the Department would step out and the family and I would work together in the future.
That was the plan. The reality was very different.
Trying to arrange access was always a fraught process. I was forced to rely entirely on the DHS worker, who often did not pass on to the family my requests for a visit. Actually being with the family was nothing short of distressing, as we struggled to adjust to the situation. No counselling was ever offered to me, though the adoptive family were given a great deal of support.
And then things took a turn for the worse. The family started to make excuse to deny me access. Though I had insisted on visits being part of the legal adoption order, I was unable to enforce that order. In four years, I saw my children twice. My complaints to DHS were met with declarations of impotence - there was nothing the worker could do, apparently. Consulting a solicitor didn't help, either. The laws were in such a sorry state that there was little way of enforcing that legal order.
As the years wore on, it got worse and worse. The family refused to allow me direct contact - everything had to be done with DHS as an intermediary. The access stopped altogether, and for months the DHS worker would not even return my calls. Finally, the worker and her supervisor turned up on my doorstep, and informed me that the family had 'relinquished' two of the children, who had been placed in foster care. Two months ago. I hadn't been told because - despite legal orders - I didn't have the 'right' to know if the family explicitly said they didn't want me to be told.
My parents immediately offered to have the two children - now nearly 11 - stay with them, as I had neither space nor the financial ability to care for them myself. We went to court for that, where the Magistrate repeatedly stressed the ridiculous and confusing nature of the laws - which, even now, allowed the adoptive parents a say in what happened to these children that they had told DHS were effectively 'orphaned'. We won that court date, but I'll never forget the Magistrate's puzzlement and frustration.
The two who went to live with my parents started talking - and they unfolded a tale of emotional and physical abuse that horrified me. This was a family that had supposedly been vetted thoroughly by DHS, who were presented to me as an ideal choice - and I'd taken the Department at its word. I immediately contacted DHS, and told them I was worried about the third child. The Department's response was that, unless contacted by someone 'in the child's life', they could not do anything other than request to see the child. The parents were free to refuse - and they did.
I fought for two years to even see my child, while my other two were under care of counsellors. In the end, that child took matters into their own hands, and ran away to be with their siblings. We informed DHS and the police that my parents were happy to care for all of them, and for once, the parents didn't fight.
But in all of this, there was nothing I could do. I could pass on the terrible stories of the abuse meted out by these adoptive parents. I could plead with DHS to intervene, to at least contact the teachers at their school. I could write letters begging the adoptive parents to let me have access, or at least to let the DHS worker in the door. I did all of those things, and they were all utterly useless. The adoptive parents were aided and abetted by the system.
My children are now healthy adults with their own lives. Our family are committed to each other, even though we are thousands of miles apart. All of this is not because of Victoria's adoption system, but despite it. And we all have scars.
Looking back now, it seems as though the decision to institute 'open adoption' was little more than someone's thought bubble. In theory, the idea that a child can have access to both birth and adoptive parents has much to recommend it. The reality is that there is no support for birth parents, that court orders are not worth the paper they're written on, and the screening process for adoptive parents is sorely in need of a complete overhaul. And that's just for a start.
Children deserve to be protected by the State, not allowed to suffer abuse while it turns a blind eye or throws up its hands in defeat.
This is only my story. I know it's happened to others, who have contacted me in the past, but it's not my place to tell their stories here. But in National Adoption Awareness Week, I wanted to tell my story. While we think about how to make it easier for people to adopt children from overseas, we also need to make sure that our laws are uniform across the States, compassionate - and above all, that they work.
