Should Adoption be Colorblind or not?

This past week, an article appeared in the Washington Post entitled, Major changes urged in transracial adoption, (May 27th, 2008) that called for changes in recruiting minority families to adopt African-American children in foster care and requiring white families to undergo training on transracial adoption.

I support training on transracial adoptions, as many families who want to adopt transracial children already are required to attend a mandatory training by most of their adoption agencies. I believe we need to be careful to not single out white adoptive and foster parents. Adoptive and foster parents have to pass rigid homestudy requirements in order to be considered and recommended to adopt transracial children. These parents are committed to providing loving homes for these children. Parenting comes from the heart and not from the womb. A child's love is colorblind when it comes to healthy attachments between parents and a child.

According Dr. Barbara Okun, Ph.D., in her book, Understanding Diverse Families-What Practitioners Need to Know (1996), "one can't assume that the problems are due to adoption or multiraciality,but one can explore possible influencing factors." (P.297). Dr. Okun supports transracial families to be open to the discussion of race and racial differences within the family.

Adoptive and foster parents are open to educational resources, supports, and advocacy in providing the best home environment for their children. Let's hope that these child welfare groups don't limit or take away the right of white families who want to adopt transracial children. What is the alternative if these children are languishing in foster care and being unloved?

I urge mental health professions to increase their knowledge, skills, and self-awareness when counseling transracial families and to not use their biases and judgements to dissolve these loving families based on ethnic factors. Embrace the uniqueness and honor the differences in these families.



Robbin Miller, LMHC
Facilitator for www.therapistsforchange.blogspot.com

What can we learn from Business Leaders about success and change?

This week's issue (May 12th, 2008) of Fortune magazine, has a very good section entitled, "The Best Advice I Ever Got," by J.Birger, C.Chandler, et.al. Business leaders from walks of life were asked to answer the above question.

Here are some quotes:

"Doing the wrong thing is not worth the loss of one night's good sleep," by Thomas S. Murphy, Former CEO of Capital Cities/ABC.(P.76). This topic pertains to ethics. Do you practice what your preach of being ethical in your practice or profession? For example, do you bill accurately? The choice is yours. Another quote by Murphy,"Don't spend your time on things you can't control. Instead, spend your time thinking what you can?" (P.76). How does this apply to you? Are therapists promoting self-care when they feel overwhelmed from the magnitude of their clients' problems?

"Customers will give you the reality. They don't care about your title, they just want value. You'll never get anything straighter than from a customer," by Charlene Begley, President and CEO, GE Enterprise Solutions (P.77). Are private practitioners providing quality and value services to their clients? How about in clinics? Graduate programs need to teach customer service skills to future clinicians so they can retain their clients and grow their practice, if they wish to do so.

"Humor takes away tension and helps you realize you're wrong," by Craig Newmark of Craigslist, (P.78). This pertains to the work culture and using humor to decrease or break the thick paste that develops in trying times at clinics or in private practice. How do you handle tough times in your job? I have been using my humor in observing how some clinicians in private practice are not respectful of each other in possible networking situations. I went to an interview for a group practice. I asked about peer supervision among the clinicians in the practice. The head leader make a face and looked up in the air while the other followers were repositioning their "feathers" after being ruffled by this question. I laughed when I left the interview because I could not believe how educated professionals can be so rude to a prospective group member. To say the least, I found another group practice to go to.

In summary, we can learn from business leaders in growing our practice, making changes in our profession, and treating each other respectfully through humor.

Robbin Miller, LMHC
Facilitator

Questions to the Commissioners

Questions to the Commissioners:
(Mental Health; Public Health; and Mass Health)

Here are two questions I have for the commissioners:

1) What can be done to decrease no-shows for children on Mass Health receiving mental health services? After speaking with providers across the domains, this population has the highest no-show rate for services. As a result, mental health clinics have challenges retaining mental health clinicians to work there. Will the commissions support paying for their no-shows?

2) What can be done to change the mindset that biology is destiny? Massachusetts is behind the times that any biological parent can parent their child without consequences. There are issues of high risk families leaving the hospitals with their infants when there are known facts that the parents may have mental health(untreated) or substance abuse problems. How come nothing is done to be prevent future damage these kids? I support prescreening these parents before they leavthe hospitals like they do for adoptive parents. Parenting comes from the heart and not from chromosomes.

Robbin Miller
Advocate/Private Practitioner