I am announcing my new book - "Orphan - Through the eyes of an orphan"   To Purchase this book:                             www.chapters.indigo.ca                               www.canadabooksonline.com                                    Baico Publishing                                   www.publishconsult.com    or write me:     orphan-book@pobox.com This is the true story of a little girl, Irina, who was orphaned at an early age. Her mother died when she was eighteen months old and her father died when she was seven. Orphan provides an insight into the unanswered questions about a child's ability to remember and to understand when they are very young. It is written through the eyes of a child -- without adult interpretations. What is the point of this book? This is the heart of it: Irina had a whole and developing life before her world collapsed with the deaths of her parents. There was no sexual or physical abuse. There were no broken bones or bruises - no visible scars. There was no drama yet there was tremendous trauma.  Not all trauma is drama. People become blinded by the drama of physical or sexual abuse. The big public spotlight shines its dramatic beam on it. Thousands of books have been published, televised and produced as movies to validate the suffering of physical and sexual abuse. The public light that shines on psychological trauma is so weak and infrequent that most ignore the quiet, frozen, compliant, hollow-hearted orphaned children as they are placed into their new or temporary homes. They are deemed to be "OK. They are fine. They are lucky." Orphaned children are placed into homes and both private and public administrators punch the reset button to erase the child's history. Thousands of little developing worlds have been "disappeared" by an insensitive society. You can't re-load the operating system on human beings. Children remember - consciously or unconsciously, they remember. This is the very heart of their suffering. It requires that society stop -- not get worked up and self-righteous and lay blame -- but take real responsibility. Those who are enlightened welcome the responsibility. We are all responsible for these children. "The lesson for adoptive parents is that they should not pretend their children's lives began when they came into their new surroundings." Dr. Bruce Lipton Visit www.orphan-book-blog.org
I have recently established a not-for-profit foundation called:
   "The Elizabeth Wiebe Society for Orphaned Children in Canada"
 We are working on two things:   1.  study the problems and expose them  - work with similarly minded organizations  - seek out the help of the experts who have studied and written about it  2. Bring awareness:   - "Orphan - Through the Eyes of an Orphan"  - Speaking Engagements  - Up-dated websitesWhat does it mean to be an Orphan?
The Definition of orphan
What does it mean to be an orphan? Many people feel orphaned at different times in their lives; however, there is a vast difference between feeling like an orphan and being orphaned - abandoned. An orphan is a child who has lost both its parents because of death or bereft of both their care; the child has no parents regardless of the circumstances, the child is an orphan.Children are allowed to consider themselves adults only when they are eighteen - that is, when they can vote, because they can think for themselves and take care of themselves. Before that they are not able to look after themselves.
Consider the orphan who one day has the security and structure of a home, parent(s) and family and the next day has none of these. The floor hasn't just dropped; it has disappeared. Wiped out - nothing.
Orphans at Large
Children languish in Foster Care
There are "88,000 children in care of provincial, territorial and First Nations agencies. Over 22,000 are waiting for adoption, and less than 1,700 of them are adopted annually across the country. These children suffer from being moved from one foster home to another, at least every two years - more often every 6 - 8 months. "
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byHow do Children Grieve?
They understand but cannot explain it
Children understand the circumstances they are thrown into. Children are tremendously honest and accurate in their perception of the situation and adults around them; it is a pure and un-jaded perception. Again,children have the understanding but they do not have the skill to describe it nor do they know how to talk about their grief.
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byDeclining State of adoption in Canada
The Ills of our Adoption System
- Adoption Council of Canada
- "Three prominent Canadian researchers have called for greater efforts to investigate the declining state of adoption in Canada.
Speaking at the 2003 Annual General Meeting of the Adoption Council of Canada held in Toronto on Nov. 22, 2003, Gail Aitken, Nancy Cohen and Jean Becker called for:
better training for social workers to make the adoption system work faster.
research on the particular attachment needs of adopted children.
a national study on the state of Aboriginal adoption." - Canada's Waiting Kids
- "ADOPTION MYTHS
One of the biggest myths about adoption in Canada is that there are no Canadian children available for adoption. There are more than 70,000 children in the care of child welfare organizations across Canada. More than 20,000 of these children have parents whose parental rights have been terminated by the courts. What this usually means is that these children have no permanent family and will live in foster care or small institutional placements until they are legally of age.
Most children registered with our program are between the ages of four and ten, but children as young as newborns and as old as fifteen have been listed. The children registered with Canada's Waiting Children tend to be more challenging than most of the Canadian children in need of permanent families. This is because children are only referred to us when no resources can be found in their home region."
"Without federal oversight, most provinces have devoted child welfare budgets to the work of child protection and foster care. Until recently, adoption work has been a low priority within provinces, and nearly non-existent between provinces. Canada is also home to many different aboriginal peoples (including First Nations, Métis, and Inuit) who have varying degrees of involvement in child welfare services for their people. The diversity of policies and processes between peoples and provinces makes cooperation between them especially challenging--more difficult than state-to-state interactions."
Interprovincial adoptions in Canada
Adoption laws vary between provinces
"Adoption laws are different for each province. Some provinces and territories require homestudies before placements, even "private direct" placements; others do not. Some require that counselling be provided for the birthparents; others do not.
Adoptions between provinces are hampered by dissimilarities in their laws. If fact, they become even more dissimilar, when Alberta passed its Child Welfare Act in 2004 which makes private direct adoptions into a do-it-yourself process. No prior screening is needed, and no homestudy is required even after the fact, unless the court requests one.
Recognizing that adoption is provincially legislated, how can you make it easier for adoptions to occur between provinces?"
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byStatistics in Canada
There are no statistics
- Stats Canada has no statistics on orphaned (abandoned) children in Canada. I've obtained data from the several Canadian adoption organizations and agencies. There are 88,000 children in foster care in Canada (I believe the number is significantly higher because there are 30,423 children in foster care in Ontario alone and the numbers are similar in Alberta); of these, 49 per cent are "Crown Wards"- looked after by the Government.
Several Canadian families have applied for orphanage status (and were denied) "because they foster more than 100 kids and often juggle 5 or more at a time".
It is far too easy to remove children from their homes. 25,000 are in foster care because their mothers are in jail - often on minor charges while legal processes delay. Abandonment issues are not recognized.
Thousands of children in foster care are waiting for adults to "roll the dice" on their future.
The cost of one child in foster care for one year is $40,000.
"Forty three per cent of these children experience violence in the foster care setting." They exist every city in Canada. Their plight has not been brought to public attention. They are children who have fallen through the cracks.
There are 22,000 children waiting for adoption in Canada. Every year the number of adoptions decline. There are only 1700 adoptions a year - these are approximate numbers as they are gathered in a willy nilly fashion from the different areas in separate provinces.
This data is 4 years old!
The Federal government must become involved in the welfare of our children.
I suggested this in a letter to Prime Minister Steven Harper; his office replied saying "Adoption in Canada is a matter of provincial jurisdiction".
Not only that, Mr. Harper recently chaired a proposal to make overseas adoptions easier while regulations for adoptions of Canadian Children lie stagnant and fraught with red tape - and our children languish in abandonment.
In my view if you can't understand and fix what's in your own back yard, don't go to the neighbours and try to fix theirs.
The fact that there are 5 - 7 million hits on each Canadian Adoption website describes the huge interest in adoption in Canada;
Then why aren't there more adoptions?
Every day people come to tell me their story - how they really tried to adopt a Canadian orphan, but the process was too filled with red tape: "it was discouraging", "It was slow and arduous", and "It was insulting". They all say the same thing - "we went elsewhere" or "we gave up altogether"; "maybe we'll get pregnant".
We have statistics on all the orphaned children in foreign countries but we do not have Statistics on Canadian orphaned children. If you don't measure it - you can't manage it.
The Canadian system favours support of foster care rather than adoption - there is no support for adoptive parents.
It costs money to look after an abandoned child (psychologically and medically); why not give to adoptive parents $1000 per month rather than $40,000 to foster one child.
There are many potential loving adoptive parents in Canada and there are many orphaned children waiting to be adopted.
The Canadian adoption process needs to be made easier throughout Canada. Let's get working to unite them in loving and happy homes.
Psychology of an orphaned child
Abandoned
Orphaned children do less well in school however, studies show that a mere 15 minutes a day of individualized caring attention and learning can consistently bring up the child's grades by two points, that is, from C to A grade points.
The Biology of Belief
Unleashing the power of consciousness, matter and miracles
What the Bleep Do We Know!?
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Your Dreams... Let Reality Catch Up: NLP and Common Sense for Coaches, Managers and You
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The Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light
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The Biology Of Belief: Unleashing The Power Of Consciousness, Matter And Miracles
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Suggested reading
When a child grieves
If you have a child that has experienced a loss, here are a few readings that may be of help:
Bibliography
Berrien, Polly. Whole Child / Whole Parent 1975.
Boritzer, Etan. What is Death? Veronica Lane Books, 2002.
Brown, Marc and Brown, Krasny Brown, Laurie. When Dinosaurs Die. Little, Brown & Company
Bryan, Mellonie. Lifetimes: a beautiful way to explain death to children. Toronto: Bantam, 1983.
Ellerton, Dr.Roger Live your Dreams NLP & common sense for Coaches, Manager and You Trafford Publishing, 2006
Elliot, Pat. Coping with Loss: from "Parents: How to help your Child."
Emswiler, Mary Ann. Guiding Your Child Through Grief. New York: Bantam Books, 2000.
Fitzgerald, Helen. Grieving Child. Fireside Rockefeller Center, 1992.
Haim, Dr. G. and Hinott, G. Between Parent and Child. NY: HarperCollins, 1975.
Harpur, Tom. The Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light. Toronto: Thomas Allen, 2004.
Harker, Jillian. Give me a Hug. Parragon Publishing. Queen Street House Bath BA1 1HE UK, date?
Hipp, Earl. Help for the Hard Times. Center City. MN: Hazeldean, 1995.
Huntley, Theresa. Helping Children Grieve: when someone they love dies. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1991.
K%u0171bler-Ross, Elizabeth. On Death and Dying New York: Touchstone, 1997.
Mills, Joyce Gentle Willow: A story for children about dying. New York: Magination Press, 1993.
Mundy, Michaelene Le Deuil Y'u pas de mal á être. St. Meinrad, Indiana: Abbey Press. date?
Pete, Saunders. La Mort. Montreal: Editions Ecole Active, 2000.
Thirty-Five ways to Help a Grieving Child. Portland OR: The Dougy Center, 1999.
What about Kids?: understanding their needs in funeral planning and services. Portland OR: The Dougy Center, 1999.
Schuurman, Donna. Never the Same: Coming to terms with the death of a parent. NY St., date?
Vigna, Judith. Saying Goodbye to Daddy. Morton Grove, IL: Albert Whitman and Co., 1991.
Warren, Hanson. The Next Place. Golden Valley, MN: Waldman House Press, 1997.
Wolfelt, Alan, D. Ph.D. Healing Your Grieving Heart for Kids: 100 practical ideas Fort Collins, CO: Companion Press, 2001.
Web sites:
web.vet.cornell.edu/public/petloss/ekr.htm
www.grievingchild.org
www.ktc.net/ritesofpassage/articles/article1.htm
Dorf Bericht German-Russian Village www.mennonites.ca/dorfbericht/index.html
www.civilization.ca Before e-commerce
http://archives.cbc.ca/IDC-1-69-377-
Movies:
"What the Bleep do we know?" Alexander Lowen
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