Please Help Support Our Mission!  July 1, 2020 Dear Friend, What a year it has been! And we’re only halfway there! We pray that you and your family have weathered this crazy COVID storm, and that this letter finds you and yours healthy! We surely are living through history, with the pandemic affecting every aspect of life, adoptions included. Sadly, all our families have experienced delays in their processes, and while restrictions are slowly being lifted, we still do not know when each family will be able to travel to adopt their child. But despite the closures, despite the painful delays, and despite the unknowns, MAA remains dedicated to each and every family and each and every child we serve. Not only has the pandemic affected the ability to complete international adoptions, but it has also had a significant impact on the daily lives of all of our families who are already home with their adopted children. While the additional time spent with families has been a blessing for attachment of some, the disruption of routine for others has been devastating. Our children who come to us through adoption bring with them layers of trauma, and often the slightest change to established routines can send our children into ‘fight or flight’ mode. From canceled therapies to canceled school to canceled everything , many of our families have reached out to MAA for our help and support. We want you to know, we will always be here for you! Prior to the pandemic, we were busy working behind the scenes to strengthen our post-adoption support for all of our families. Over the past several years, we have recognized that the face of ‘the adopted child’ is much different than ever. The children in need of adoption are almost all older, medically fragile, and/or sibling groups, and all with histories of trauma. Now more than ever, a family’s story doesn’t end at the adoption, but the adoption is only the beginning. And to successfully emerge as a loving, bonded family, support, counseling, and guidance is often and frequently needed.  Adriana Chaves, our Hosting Coordinator, has her master’s degree in Clinical and Family Psychology and has been stepping out of her role as Hosting Coordinator and providing counseling services for families in crisis, as well as families hoping to avoid crisis. Also, we have shifted Lindsey Teefey’s role within MAA from case worker to Post-Adoption Wellness Coordinator upon reflection and the realization that the more support we can provide to our families once home, the better. The harsh reality is that the number of adoptions has been decreasing annually even before the pandemic hit. And now that our world has been rocked physically, financially, and emotionally from the pandemic, those numbers will likely continue to decline. With fewer and fewer adoptions, MAA has fewer and fewer resources to put where they are needed most – post-adoption support. So we are reaching out to ask for your help in supporting our mission to bring hope, love, and connection by serving children, individuals, and families in the areas of adoption, foster care, and support services. With your donation, we can continue to expand our post-adoption counseling services to ensure that every family, whether an MAA family or not, receives the supports they need in order to thrive. We also ask that you consider a recurring monthly donation, so we can continue to expand our supports, well into the future! Donations can be made via PayPal here . From the bottom of my heart, and on behalf of adoptive families and children, thank you for your consideration. We are all ‘in this together’, in more respects than one. Please stay safe and God bless! Sincerely, Diana Bramble, MBA, LMSW Executive Director of Operations

DID YOU KNOW that if you shop through  Amazon Smile  that Madison Adoption Associates receives a donation?! You must be sure to go directly to  smile.amazon.com  and choose Madison Adoption Associates as your non-profit of choice. Then, you must go to  smile.amazon.com  EACH time you shop to ensure MAA receives the donation (rather than using the Amazon app).  And for you Android users, you can now enable Amazon Smile in your Android mobile app instead of needing to checkout with a web browser! (Coming soon for iPhones). A few extra clicks means that more kids get help around the world!  Thank you for choosing MAA as your non-profit of choice. Now get shopping!

We know the costs of adoption are challenging for many families, so in addition to child-specific grants we offer assistance for some families based on family circumstances. We also partner with Brittany's Hope to award grants to some of our families twice a year! Contact us to learn more about grants and how to plan for the fees in your adoption process.

We are thrilled to share that the Bulgarian Ministry of Health has made an exception for adoptive parents to travel to Bulgaria! Families who have passed court will be permitted to travel to Bulgaria and take custody of their child after a quarantine period, and then return to the US together. We are so glad to see governments working with agencies to help unite children with their families!

And Colombia will allow adoptive families to travel starting in September! While things can always change in the world of adoption, right now we are scheduling travel and custody appointments for our families in early September. We cannot wait to see these children finally come home to their forever families.

Check out the video from Heartlight Ministry!

Madison is dedicated to continuing to support families after they are home with their children. Our post-adoption online support groups for MAA families are meeting again in July. In this month’s Parent group, we will be discussing the topic “Parenting Kids with Challenging Behaviors.” In our Kids groups, we will be playing games, and there will be an Amazon gift card giveaway! Check out the groups below and please email Adriana Chaves if you would like to join a group. We will then send you the appropriate Zoom Meeting Information.

Blocked Care How to Help Discouraged Adoptive Parents Regain Compassion Adoptive and foster parents can often feel burned out when the children they love repeatedly push them away. In July’s issue of the Adoption Advocate, Melissa Corkum and Lisa Qualls explore the brain science that contributes to this state of “blocked care” and share ways that parents can move beyond fatigue and frustration, renew their empathy, and find joy in parenting. Melissa and Lisa are hosts of The Adoption Connection Podcast, and Lisa’s book The Connected Parent, co-written with Dr. Karyn Purvis, will be released July 7th this year. Read the full article here!

It is beyond difficult for us not to be able to share any Welcome Home photos this month. Gut-wrenching really. Our hearts ache for our families. And our hearts ache for the children. But HOPE will not be cancelled! The children pictured below all have families coming for them. Families fighting for them. Families that will hop on that plane the moment we are able to say GO! So hang on sweet ones…..though we are faced with this delay, know that we, and your families, will NOT give up on you!