The Farm Team

The following email was received from a participant in one of the boot camps last weeked. We share it with her permission.

Thanks again for the great workshop and information. Although I am not a candidate, I want to do all I can to help Terri get elected to the school board in Rockbridge County. The ideas will also be helpful in my advocacy work for children and families regarding foster care/adoption and poor use of CSA funds to assist needy children and their families. These “mandated” CSA funds are nearly bankrupting our county and many others in Virginia. Yet it’s so easy to spend less and help families and children more. But I can’t seem to organize my message in such a way that others understand how communities can spend less money and provide better services. Now, thanks to the workshop, I have lots of ideas on how to improve my presentation and message.

Attached is one small change I have been able to create (with a great deal of help from others) to help special needs foster children adopted in Virginia. NACAC (North American Council of Adoptable Children) is taking this ruling I requested from the feds and will be using it to create the same change in approximately 7 other states who have been denying adoption support services in violation of federal law. It’s great to be a part of a change that will help so many special needs former foster children and their adoptive families.

Thanks again for the great program. I hope your next program went just as well.

Susan Lawrence

Attached to her email was a newsletter, the text of which appears below.

FACES of Virginia Families Advocacy Alert

Virginia’s Adoption Assistance Law related to Custody No Longer Valid

Susan L. of Rockbridge County, FACES member and foster mom, recently challenged Virginia’s law requiring that children be in the legal custody of public and private agencies in order to receive adoption assistance and services. She took her challenge to the Feds. –Never believe that one person can’t make a difference!!!!

In April, the Virginia Department of Social Services was instructed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, to change the Virginia law!

FACES was notified, today, that the Attorney General’s office has confirmed that federal requirements “trump” this antiquated Virginia state law, and that the local and private agencies may no longer consider legal custody by a private or public agency a REQUIREMENT in the eligibility for adoption assistance and services.

Please be sure to read our newsletter next week for more information about how adoption assistance and services eligibility is determined in Virginia, now that the Virginia custody law has been rendered null and void.

You can visit FACES of Virginia Families on the web at facesofvirginia.org