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CHINA AND TAIWAN PROGRAM NEWSLETTER
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September means back to school!
Gladney is kicking off the fall with the help of these little scholars. We're not sure who's happier that school is back in session - kids or parents!
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Welcome home to sisters Jean and Kiki from Taiwan!
The Williams family welcomes Levi from Fujian Province.
Scotch, the dog, may be the most excited about the newest addition to the Taylor family!
The Richmond family of FIVE!
They Moyers welcome their son home to North Carolina.
Congratulations to the Haydel family!
Welcome ErHui to team Gilmore!
Congratulations Brooke family on the addition of George!
We celebrate with all the families who recently traveled to meet their children!
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China
CCCWA UPDATE:
Last month we shared about a recent announcement from CCCWA regarding several changes to the China adoption program. One of these changes involves the process by which agencies receive referrals of children available for adoption. For the last several years, Gladney has been working directly with many orphanage partners to match children. However, as of January 2018, the process will shift from a "designated file" system to a centralized "shared list".
The "shared list" is a protected online database that CCCWA uses to organize and share children's files. Children from the Waiting Child program are able to be viewed by all approved adoption agencies. New profiles can be added to the shared list at anytime, however, CCCWA also notifies agencies when a larger number of files will be added.
Many Gladney families who, years ago, matched through the shared list will be able to recall the night(s) that their caseworker was watching the list on their behalf and the flurry of activity that occurred within 72 hours of receiving a referral!
The shared list has always been active as a means of matching families, however in 2018 it will become the primary method of providing referrals. Although there are still some unknowns around this transition, Gladney will continue to work with the Chinese government to provide our families with the same standard of quality service to bring children into loving, permanent homes.
CHINA Program Updates:
We're starting our fall season with a bang!
Our DHL delivery man continues to delight us with bringing official paperwork from CCCWA to our desks! We have recently received 4 Letter Seeking Confirmations (LSC) and 1 Travel Approval (TA) for families in the  program.
Gongzhan Wu hosted this month's travel call for 5 families that are excitedly getting ready to meet their children in China.
Since our last newsletter we have welcomed 10 new families into the program! Many families join after considering different programs and options and making the decision to get started, however we also have several new families who found us through our Superkids blog and joined the program to adopt a specific child.
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Program Update:
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| 8 yr old Draydon needs a family! |
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We currently have 8 families matched to children, and 7 families with pending matches to waiting children!
On our
Superkids blog, we recently highlighted direct referrals from Taiwan. Many people don't realize that the younger children who are medically healthy, or with minor medical needs, are referred directly to waiting families, rather than becoming a waiting child. So, there is a huge advantage to joining the program and getting your home study completed in order to be added to the waiting families list! For more information, you can read the blog post
here.
To learn more about the process of adopting from Taiwan, or about the waiting children in Taiwan, please reach out to Taiwan Program Caseworker, Mary Chapman, at [email protected]. And don't forget about our private Taiwan Advocacy Group on Facebook!
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Click on a photo to learn more (China)
Click on a photo to learn more (Taiwan)
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Today Superkids is sharing the spotlight with a guest post by Katie Hill, the Head Nurse and Childcare Manager at Butterfly Children's Hospice in Changsha, China. Our Superkids volunteers have met many of the little "butterfly babies" and have worked with Katie and the other nurses from the Butterfly Home to provide updated information and
acquire important tests to assist adoptive parents in preparing to bring these children home. We have met Katie and the others on numerous occasions and are thankful for the relationship we have!
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Katie with one of the tiniest butterflies!
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What is the Butterfly Home?
Since 2010, Butterfly Children's Hospices have provided loving care and treatment for children who have life limiting or life threatening illnesses in Changsha, China. Some of the children are only with us for a matter of hours, others have days or months, and some will thrive with the extra hope, love and medical attention and go on to get adopted.
No matter how small or how sick, we give every baby or child the love, care and medical attention they need.
We are working in partnership with the Chinese government to create a sustainable model of palliative care that can be extended to different communities. In 2013, we founded another hospice in Nanjing using the same model of care. We successfully completed training for Chinese medical and nursing professionals in January 2015 and Nanjing Rainbow is now independently run by a Chinese organization serving children in this community.
The Butterfly Home is a Happy Place
Even in the face of such heartbreak, we ensure that our home is a happy place, where children can be children, and are shown love and care every day. Although end-of-life care is a large part of what we do, we also have children, who thanks to our expert teams, go on to make full recoveries and are fostered, or adopted by loving families. In the Butterfly
 Home, we see past the diagnoses and complicated files; we see the children for who they are, their smiles, cheeky personalities and the sparkle in their eyes. And Gladney sees that too! We are delighted that the orphanage has partnered with Gladney for adoptions so some of our miracle children can go on to know the love of a family.
A Butterfly Home Fairy-tale Story
Gladney works hard to match these little miracles with their perfect families and the Butterfly staff loves to watch them grow up through the help of social media! One of my favorite fairy-tale endings is the story of Michael and Robert, two of our little ones who ended up as brothers. You can read the rest of their story
here.
Thank you Katie for everything you do for the most vulnerable children! To learn more about Butterfly Children's Hospice, click here.
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Fall 2017 Events:
10/1: Austin, TX Pizza Party
Kickoff
Click
HERE
to view all GFA events
UPCOMING TRAININGS
11/9-11/10: Fort Worth, TX
Gladney Pathways training
, China program staff will be attending this training to meet Asia families!
NYC Metro Area - Opportunity to Participate in a Clinical Study
Dr. Nim Tottenham with Columbia University is conducting a study to increase
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Dr. Nim Tottenham
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understanding about early childcare settings and the impact on children's
emotional development. If you live in the NYC metro area, have a child between the ages of 6-8 years old who was adopted internationally, and are interested in being a part of this study, your participation would be welcome! Research studies such as these give our community important information for preparing and supporting adoptive parents and our children.
Click
HERE for more info.
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