THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, January 13, 1997 TAG: 9701130061
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: 56 lines
A nonprofit adoption agency is launching a media campaign to urge Virginians to adopt children who need a permanent home.
The campaign is aimed at the needs of older children, who often are overlooked in the adoption process, and at black children, who make up the bulk of children given up for adoption.
``The reward you get from raising a child will always outweigh anything you may have to go through,'' said Patricia Bracey, who was 45 and single in 1991 when she adopted three siblings.
Bracey is now the regional recruiter for Coordinators/2 Inc., a Richmond-based adoption agency.
The agency recently received a $200,000, two-year grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to encourage more African-Americans to consider adopting black children ages 10 and up or to consider adopting siblings to keep them together.
Of the 685 Virginia children whose parents have given custody of their children to the state, 60 percent are black, state officials report.
Sondra Draper, a social worker with Coordinators/2, said it's not unusual for black families to raise children as their own. But they haven't always used legal channels to assume custody.
``Adoption in the African-American community has been happening, just not on a formal basis,'' Draper said.
``A neighbor may be aware that a young woman is with child and opens her home without formalizing the adoption through the courts. And there's the aunt who takes in the niece's child while she goes back to school,'' she explained.
Draper said the agency intends to use the grant money in several ways, including a statewide media campaign to provide Virginians with information about children available for adoption.
Draper, who is serving as coordinator for the project, will work closely with Virginia One Church, One Child, the state chapter of a national program that recruits adoptive families for black children through churches.
By the end of the two-year period, Coordinators/2 hopes to have informed at least 400 black families about the adoption process and to have found adoptive homes for at least 25 children.
Part of the problem has been blacks' fears of bureaucracy, said Cassandra Calender-Ray, executive director of Virginia One Church, One Child.
``Some people feel the process invades their privacy,'' she said. ``Some are afraid of the paperwork. Some are put off by the fear that the birth parents are going to come back.''
And Calender-Ray said some people are just afraid of parenting a child not born to them.
Draper said adoptive parents can be male or female, married or single. There is no maximum salary requirement, and parents need not own a home. ILLUSTRATION: FOR DETAILS
To contact Coordinators/2, call (800) 690-4206.
KEYWORDS: ADOPTION MINORITY