AFAA - The Association for Families who have Adopted from Abroad

ADOPTION COMMENTARY

Vox pop

We have been very pleased with the high response to AFAA’s autumn survey about your views on the future development of our organisation, and the Committee are very grateful to all those who managed to send back the questionnaire. AFAA members are a unique set of families, and of course AFAA is nothing without you, hence our concern to clarify what you want and are prepared to contribute. Detailed analysis is still being undertaken, but I can mention some general conclusions.

One theme is that some members want more scope to interact with others in their vicinity. This is very understandable in an organisation that is largely postal and virtual by nature but nevertheless deals with key family issues. These need to be expressed in person, which we’ve sought to do more or less nationally in recent years through our programme of summer picnics which include the annual general meeting, and seminars which have tended to occur in the winter half year. The message from some quarters is that more local and spontaneous events should be tried. The national Committee will be trying to facilitate this and will be looking to members to play the essential part in taking up local initiatives and helping to make them work.

One relative gap in the responses relates to people who are willing to help run AFAA at a national level. We don’t need people with special skills - just those with a bit of time and some enthusiasm to pitch in and help! We still need members to help with the basic important tasks, like writing for the Newsletter, helping produce and circulate it, take a share of helping to organise our functions and helping out on the day. A few extra volunteers will go a long way, so if you are reading this and haven’t returned your questionnaire, don’t be immobilised with guilt(!), but please take the time to go through it and see if there’s anything you could offer to do in order to help improve AFAA for all its members.

Fair’s fair

Once upon a time, inter-country adoption in the UK was oh-so-different from the domestic version, but as official attitudes and then legislation have changed, the two approaches have converged to a generally more rigorous common set of requirements. Besides the obligations, statutory rights are also being levelled-up, and a final piece of the jigsaw will soon slot into place, ensuring that inter-country adopters have the same rights to adoption leave and pay as their domestic counterparts.

The Government plans that from April 2003, the rules for adoption leave and pay for inter-country adopters should reflect domestic practice as far as possible. This means that subject to certain qualifying conditions being met, particularly with regard to there being a need to bond with the child, then all employed adopters will be eligible for 26 weeks of paid leave and 26 weeks unpaid. The adopter’s partner however only gets two weeks paternity leave! As it happens, individual employers may be more generous: for example civil servants may find they are entitled to four weeks paternity leave.

All in all, this is a very welcome development for inter-country adopters, and details can be found at www.dti.gov.uk/er/review.htm .

(Personal views by Andrew Gibbons )

* Vox pop * Fair’s fair

Andrew Gibbons
chairman.afaa@pobox.com

Please note that views expressed in these articels are not necessarly those of the Editor or the Webmaster or of the AFAA Committee.

Registered Charity Number 1003274

Last modified: 1 February, 2003