Hi Dan, She is using the WWW to raise awareness about her concerns. Sometimes it only takes the right person doing the right thing to get a situation resolved. Some times it takes a lot of people to solve a problem this heartbreaking, so the WWW sounds like the place to be. With Love, CtrlAltDel aka Dave C4/5 Complete - 30 Years Post Texas, USA
Dan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Hey Guys, I got this off another list. Any suggestions for her? Dan V At 10:38 PM 1/19/2007 -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: Question: You stated that you testified in the state legislature, how does one go about that? I am an adoptive parent and have adopted 2 ventilator dependent children (did not have them both at home at the same time). One of them came from an institution in California. It took us two years to get him out of the institution. The institution did not want to let him go. We were very fortunate that he had a great lawyer and judge or he would still be living there. He was 3 1/2 when we brought him home and had never been outside the institution except to go to dr/hospital. Now he is 7, in a regular kindergarten class. Runs in and out all day (in his great electric chair). He is doing great. As an advocate for waiting adoptive children I am very concerned about medically fragile children living in institutions. I am talking about the kids that are available for adoption. The institutions have alot of authority about wether a child can leave or not. For example, we have been fighting New York for 5 years trying to get a legally free now 13 year old boy out of an institution. The institution will not allow him to leave. I have written everyboby I can think of, including Hillary Clinton and have gotten nowhere. Does anyone have any ideas on where to advocate for these precious children? Also, I would like to write my masters thesis on this issue but have been having an awful time getting statistics on numbers of children living in institutions throughout the country. My best guess is thousands, and most of these children will live their entire life in an institution. We are putting babies in institutions. No matter how good an institution is, I do not believe it is the answer if there are other options. If anyone here has any ideas on how to collect data regarding numbers I would love to hear from you. Also, if anyone has any ideas on who to contact that may be interested in this issue I am willing to try talking/writing to anyone. Thanks, Nora in Michigan
