Category - Special Needs

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12

Mar

Providing Hope and Life to a Special Needs Child: The Folbrecht Adoption

in Special Needs

The need for adoptive parents continues worldwide, and the need is the greatest for special needs children. The term “special needs” encompasses a wide variety of medical needs, but also includes children who are considered hard to place, such as older children (usually age 6 and above) or a sibling group of two or more children. ...

12

Feb

What do Special Needs Look Like in Peru?

by Caitlin Snyder

in Special Needs

In 2017, MLJ Adoptions began working to find families for unparented children in Peru! Most families who enter into our Peru program will end up being matched with a child off of a Special Needs List, which is published monthly. We received our first Special Needs List in January! A majority of the children in ...

29

Nov

Would Your Family Consider Adopting a Child with Special Needs?

in Special Needs

Has your family considered adopting a child with special needs? A special needs adoption is defined as adopting a child with an additional need, a sibling group or a hard to place child. How it is defined can vary from country to country. Definitions and references to special needs can be vastly encompassing and wide ...

25

Sep

Finding Families for Children – the Struggles and the Rewards

in Hosting, Special Needs, Ukraine

Working in adoption the past eleven years has afforded me the opportunity to work with many adoptive families, and I have treasured the opportunity. I feel that I have connected many parents with the child or children that completed their family; however there are times when I need to be reminded that my job is about ...

18

Sep

Families Needed to Adopt from Haiti!

in Haiti, Special Needs

Following Haiti’s violent earthquake in January 2010, a massive outpouring followed of prospective adoptive families reaching out to adoption agencies seeking information on how to help by adopting Haiti’s orphaned children. The phone calls were non-stop, and the switchboards could not handle the numbers of calls coming in. So many families wanted to adopt from ...

30

Aug

Four Benefits of Adopting a Waiting Child from a Photolisting

in Special Needs

I remember the days before my first adoption, in which I would look through all the waiting child photolisting sites in hopes of finding “my child.” Fervently looking in to the eyes of every child, I would search to find a connection to a specific child, and would then pray over those who were waiting ...

26

Jul

Special Needs in Burkina Faso

in Burkina Faso, Special Needs

MLJ Adoptions is excited about our adoption program in Burkina Faso and the continued efforts of Burkina Faso’s central authority to place their most vulnerable children! Last week, MLJ received a third special needs list from the office of La Direction des Placements et des Adoptions, Burkina Faso’s central authority. Central authorities or adoption authorities ...

29

Mar

What is Special Needs Adoption?

in Special Needs

Families often start out on their adoption journey wanting to make a difference in the life of a child. But when families contact an agency, they may be told that most of the programs they’re interested in are “Special Needs Adoption” programs. This can be a scary term, and when we have this conversation with prospective clients, they ...

30

Nov

Dealing- and Playing- with Sensory Processing Disorder

by Angela Simpson, BSW

in Special Needs, Support Services

If your kids are anything like mine they like to run, jump, climb and play HARD. We have sports equipment for nearly every sport (even lacrosse!), bikes, roller blades, pogo sticks, skateboards, hula hoops, a swing set, exercise balls and a gymnastics mat, and sometimes that’s still not enough to keep my kids busy and ...

27

Jul

Common Misconceptions About Adopting Older Children

by Caitlin Snyder

in Special Needs

Adoption is hard. Adopting older children can be even harder. But like with anything worthwhile, there are challenges and rewards. It is important when your family is considering the adoption of an older child to root through the truth and misconceptions of older child adoption. Older children who are adopted have likely played a more ...

18

Jul

We’re Interested in Adopting a Sibling Group; Where Should We Adopt From?

by Caitlin Snyder

in Bulgaria, Special Needs

The children in need of families from each country are quite different. No child is more or less worthy of a family, but it is also important to understand how the need for adoptive families varies from country to country. Depending on the information known about a child or the procedures for completing the child’s ...

6

Jul

What Should I Consider When Adopting An Older Child?

by Karlene Edgemon, MS, LSW

in Special Needs, Support Services

Every adoption has both its challenges and rewards, and this is especially true when adopting an older child. Parents who choose to adopt an older child should have certain characteristics. While the desire to adopt and become a parent is, of course, the primary characteristic needed, there are some traits that seem to stand out in parents who ...

5

Jul

Waiting Child Photolisting Gives Children an Opportunity for a Family

by Caitlin Snyder

in Special Needs

A picture is worth a thousand words. Pictures elicit an emotional response that even the most well-written sentence cannot bring about. By maintaining a Waiting Child Photolisting, MLJ Adoptions is able to provide older children from Bulgaria, Samoa, Ukraine, and other countries the opportunity to be adopted. For years, families interested in adoption have closed their ...

29

Feb

Are You a Good Candidate to Adopt an Older child?

by Caitlin Snyder

in Special Needs

With every adoption, as with anything worthwhile, there are challenges and rewards. Some families are up for the challenge of adopting an older child, feel called to meet this great need or simply feel that adopting an older child best meets their family’s season of life. Regardless of why, there are certain characteristics consistent in ...

25

Nov

Options for Families Seeking to Adopt a Child with Special Needs

in Special Needs

International adoption can be confusing, trying to decide which country to adopt from, deciding the age of the child that is a good fit for your family and even deciding the gender of child you are open to; all can seem overwhelming to families. Adding to the decision making is choosing to adopt a child ...

21

Sep

MLJ Adoptions Offers Special Needs Adoption Options

by Caitlin Snyder

in Special Needs

Children in need of families are the world’s most vulnerable children. They are vulnerable to child trafficking, vulnerable to medical illnesses and they live outside of the protection of a loving family. Throughout their lifetimes, they are more likely to experience homelessness, be exploited or turn to lives of crime due to desperation. Families called ...

4

Aug

MLJ Introduces Waiting Child Photolisting

by Caitlin Snyder

in MLJ Adoptions, Special Needs

Every child has the fundamental human right to grow up in a loving, permanent home where their physical and emotional needs can be met. Around the world, there are many children waiting to be adopted into a permanent home simply because they have a special need. These special needs can be quite minor, while others can ...

8

Apr

Adoptive Siblings Discuss Older Child Adoption

by Jordan Kelly

in Special Needs

With three siblings that were adopted as older children, I witness every day the many blessings that come from having these children in my family. To me, adding a new brother or sister to the family was always exciting regardless of their age – it was one more person to create memories and share traditions ...

4

Feb

Celebrating the Little Things in Older Child Adoption

in Special Needs

For those of you who have chosen to parent older children, you can probably relate to the struggles that many of us who have adopted older children face on a daily basis. There are days that you question why you did it, other days that you would openly admit you wouldn’t do it again, yet occasionally you ...

3

Feb

6 Things You Need to Know About Adopting an Older Child

by MLJ Adoptions

in Special Needs

It’s hard to believe that in ten days, our family will have been together for one year. Adopting a teenager from Bulgaria was not part of our original plan. When we started on our adoption journey, we had intended to adopt an older child between the ages of 8-10. But, when we saw the picture ...

28

Jan

Older Children Deserve a Family

by MLJ Adoptions

in Special Needs

Previously, we posted the first-hand account of a MLJ Adoptions client who adopted a teenager through our Bulgaria International Adoption program. She described some of the struggles she encountered during the first year after adopting a teenager. The truth is that adopting an older child or a child who has a special need is not ...

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