2008 Schedule
Aug 5 . . . St. Louis, MO
Aug 12. . . Tulsa, OK
Sept 6. . . Orange County, CA
Sept 9. . . Little Rock, AR
Oct 4 . . . Orange County, CA
Oct 7 . . . St. Louis, MO
Oct 7 . . . Kansas City, KS
Oct 14. . . Tulsa, OK
Nov 11. . . Little Rock, AR
Nov 15. . . Orange County, CA
Dec 2. . . .St. Louis, MO
Dec 9 . . . Tulsa, OK
Pre-Adoption
Workshops
2008 Schedule
Aug 9 . . . Tulsa, OK
Aug 23. . . Wichita, KS
Sept 13. . .St. Louis, MO
Sept 13. . .Little Rock, AR
Oct 11. . . Tulsa, OK
Nov 8. . . . Oklahoma City, OK
Dec 6 . . . Orange County, CA
Dec 6 . . . Tulsa, OK
Dec 6 . . . Dallas, TX
OFFICE HOURS (CST)
8:00 AM - 5:00 PM...Mon-Thurs
8:00 AM - 4:30 PM...Friday
LOCATIONS:
In Oklahoma -- main office
3227 East 31st Street, #200
Tulsa, OK 74105
Voice: 918/749-4600
Fax: 918/749-7144 Email this office
In Arkansas --
4702 W. Commercial Dr., #B1
North Little Rock, AR 72116 and
1882 North Starr Road
Fayetteville, AR 72701
Voice: 501/791-9300
Fax: 501/791-9303 Email this
office
In California --
18001 Irvine Blvd., Suite 101
Tustin, CA 92780
Voice: 714/734-8600
Fax: 714/734-8688 Email this office
In Kansas --
2420 West 76th Street
Prairie Village, KS 66208
Voice: 913/544-2805 Email this office
IIn Missouri --
1 First Missouri Center, #115
St. Louis, MO 63141
Voice: 314/576-4100
Fax: 314/453-9975 Email this
office
In Texas --
P. O. Box 2785
Coppell, TX 75019
Voice: 972/263-1539
Fax: 972/624-8241 Email this office
A "waiting child" is
defined as a child who doesn't have a permanent family yet, but
who is legally free for adoption and whose adoption papers are
ready. A child may become a waiting child due to
various factors including medical special needs, developmental
and/or emotional delays, being an older child or part of a
sibling group. These factors may range from mild to severe
depending upon the individual circumstances.
Dillon International has always
had a concern for waiting children. Our agency has worked behind the
scenes for many years helping these children to find permanent
families to love and care for them, to receive much needed
services while they awaited adoption, and to continue receiving
on-going services after they were adopted.
Our son Maddox, adopted
from Korea, was a 29 week preemie. When he arrived home
at 8 months of age, we expected a little boy who would
be delayed 3 months and had a crossed eye--that’s what
all of his paperwork said. Instead Maddox had a severe
flat spot (from not being turned in the ICU) that was
affecting his brain growth, craniosynistosis that
required surgery to re-shape his skull, global delays
(he was not 3 months behind, he was 11 months), high
muscle tone, possible mild cerebral palsy, and he was
recently diagnosed with Duchenne’s Muscular Dystrophy.
He does not have a crossed eye.
Resource Guide on Special Needs lists various
special needs conditions along with definitions,
treatment options and adopted children with each special
need.
Our first step in creating a more
formal "waiting child program" was the development of our online
photolisting several years ago. The photolisting has allowed us to broaden our
reach for prospective adoptive families, thus allowing us to help
many more children end their wait for families to love and care
for them. At the request of several of our adoptive
families, we are now expanding our photolisting pages to include
additional resources to help adoptive families who are seeking to
adopt and to parent a waiting child.
The Internet's broad access has given us the ability to
introduce waiting children to more potential adoptive
families. At the same time, we feel a great
responsibility to each child to protect their privacy
as much as possible within such a public forum. You
will note that each child has an assigned case number
made up of a combination of alpha and numeric
characters. Even though each child has a given
birth name, case numbers are used in order to maintain
the child's privacy. We also strive to be careful in
the information that is posted about each child to
protect their privacy while providing families with
enough information to make an informed decision on
whether they could potentially parent a specific child.
In addition, some
countries do not allow the use of pictures on the
internet with their waiting children as a means of
protecting the children's privacy,
but photos, and sometimes video, are usually available
for families who inquire about a specific child.
Dillon
International's photolisting of waiting children is separated by
individual country. In order to review a particular
country's waiting children who are currently available for
adoption, please first complete the
online screening form for that country. After
your initial screening form has been received, you will receive
a password via email so that you may view basic information
about individual waiting children on secure web pages.
PLEASE NOTE: Passwords will periodically be changed in
order to further protect the privacy and anonymity of each child
featured with Dillon's Waiting Child Program.
Letter to Physician or Healthcare Provider (Download this letter ONLY
if you have a medical condition or received mental health
counseling that will require PRIOR COUNTRY APPROVAL
before your Waiting Child Adoption Application may be
approved.)
Once we have received the above
information, we will send you specific information about the
child you are interested in adopting. We can only send
information on one child at a time to a family (unless you are
considering a sibling set).
Please remember that if more
than one family is interested in the adoption of a specific
child, Dillon International's Adoption Committee will
determine which family has the ability to best meet the child's
needs. If all things appear to be equal, preference may be given
to a family based upon various factors such as the family's
"paperwork readiness," access
to quality health care to meet the child's specific special
needs, and/or individual family experience, etc.
Families, who inquire about a specific waiting
child, will receive a copy of the child's medical and social history,
medical diagnosis and treatment, recent videos and/or photographs for
review. We strongly encourage each family to have their family
physician review a prospective child's medical information with
them in order to explain various diagnoses and available corrective
surgeries and/or treatment options.
Should you have any
questions in completing our Waiting Child Adoption Application,
please review ourWaiting Child FAQsection or contact our office at
918/749-4600 if you don't find the answer to your question.
Who is a
"waiting child?" A waiting child is a child who is paperwork
ready, but has no family matched already. Waiting children
may be older, be a member of a sibling group, or have special
needs.
What does
"special needs" mean? The term
"special needs" can be frightening at times for people. Our
waiting children have a wide range of concerns. Often these
concerns have caused or continue to cause the children to be
harder to place than other children. For this reason, they
are placed in our Waiting Child Program. Sometimes
one family may be more comfortable with one child's situation and
not comfortable with another child's. Our goal is to match
children and families in the best possible way for both the child
and the family.
Some special needs may be
correctable with a surgery while others may require more
long-term care. There exists no single definition or way to
quantify "special needs." Each child waiting for a home is
unique and special in their own way and must be considered in
that way.
Who would
make a good family for a waiting child? In
considering the adoption of a child who is waiting, families must
make several considerations.
Families need to look at
their own family dynamics and their preparedness to care for
a child who has special needs
Geographic location and
resources such as special medical centers may be a factor
Flexibility and patience
to care for a child who may have life-long problems
Health insurance and
benefits that may be needed by a special needs child
Who can adopt
a Waiting Child? The general
requirements for a specific country's adoption program usually
apply for waiting children. At times exceptions to some
requirements may be made for a waiting child.
Are fees
different for a Waiting Child? The fees
for the adoption of a waiting child are the same as any other
child's adoption. However, special consideration will be
given to families adopting a waiting child in the application
process for our Building Famliies Fund grant. Several other
grant programs are designed especially to assist in the adoption
of waiting children.
"We have three
children that we adopted through Dillon's India program and each
one was considered a child with special needs. We chose these children because we felt that
despite their physical conditions, each one had so much potential
and we had the love and resources to help them reach for it.
It took a leap of faith to begin each adoption, but we've been
rewarded by seeing each child blossom in their own way once they
were part of a loving family. It is an awesome honor and
responsibility to love our children and to be loved by them in
return. I wish that I could bottle up a little of my kids'
love and share it with anyone who is considering special needs
adoption so they could experience what a blessing it is."
--Culbertson family, OHIO
eee
"We should have been nervous when we saw all the
abbreviated medical terms on our son's referral but we weren't.
We knew this was our son and that he would be fine! We now
have a second son (also considered special needs at the time) and
both boys are healthy and on target! Dillon International
was with us every step of the way and now we have two incredible
children that make us laugh every single day!" --Weldy family, MISSOURI
eee
"The moment we saw our
daughter’s video we knew she was ours. She was 8 months old.
She had had one previous assignment of
a family who had decided not to pursue the adoption.
She was shown to several other
families who also declined. We like to think of her as our
unexpected gift from God. In other words our hearts were
opened to the child God had planned for us, whatever her special
needs were." --Bayer family, OKLAHOMA
eee
When my husband and I began the process for our daughter, we had
NO idea the plan God had for us. We already had one son
through Dillon and felt God's leading to adopt another child.
I had the opportunity to go to Korea on
Dillon's M.O.M. trip. I got to see first-hand how the
wonderful staff at Eastern took care of the babies. I also
got a better understanding about the wonderful medical care and
information that is provided on babies with special needs.
It was there that I felt very sure that God had a child for us.
We knew in our hearts that God wanted us to
take a baby with special needs. When filling out the
paperwork, we prayed over the special needs list. We felt
sure about many of the needs on the list including cleft lip and
palate. To our amazement, just a few weeks after we turned in our
paperwork, Dillon called us about a baby girl with a cleft
palate. She was a waiting child. To our surprise, she had
been born a few weeks after I had been in Korea.
Our daughter is an incredible child and has
added so much to our lives. When I look at her, I can't
believe that she was a waiting child. We feel so blessed that God
brought her into our family. We feel it is important to tell
others our story because special needs adoption doesn't have to
be scary. We learned how many things classified as special needs
are minor or with good medical help, can be cured, fixed or
helped. We hope others will prayerfully consider these special
children and wait for an answer from God. One of these
children may just be the child they have been praying for.
--Argent Family, MISSOURI
Dillon's Special Needs Forum is for Dillon adoptive families who have adopted a
child with identified special needs. The forum gives
families the opportunity
to meet with other adoptive families whose children have special
needs and share their children's developmental milestones plus
swap new treatment resources and ideas with each other, parenting tips, and encouragement during challenging times.
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