What could have been done differently to change your journey and your outcome? (Not what YOU could have done, but what OTHERS could have done.)

I stand by the fact that training — both pre-service and ongoing as well as long term post-adoption support would have made all the difference. I wish I had known about RAD — the risks involved — where to go to get help and what to do if that help was ineffective. I wish I would have learned the likelihood of false allegations and why they occur. I wish I had known where to go for support.


I guess I might as well ask the other question... what might YOU have done differently?

I would have had less idealized expectations and instead more realistic goals. The Casey Family Foundation did a study two years after emancipation of kids who were adopted from foster care. The results were startling, at least to me. The number of kids who have not obtained a GED or High School education, the number who are again living with their biological families even though the county has not reunified them, the number of kids involved with drugs and alcohol, who have been incarcerated or involved with violence is so much higher than the general population. I don’t think knowing this would have made me more cynical—instead, I think it would have given me a baseline. Also, I would have gone beyond my own understanding of sexual abuse because I was not able to acknowledge what I could not envision and I would not have discounted the role of genetics in this journey. Most importantly, I would have better protected my family by not hanging on too long to a child that I could not reach.

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