Links
The developmental needs of institutionalized children are well documented and we advise you to educate yourself on this topic so that you can offer wise parenting to these children and have realistic expectations, not idealistic ones.
The following Internet sites also have a wealth of information about intercountry adoption:
Support Organizations (including dozens of links to other relevant sites)
Families for Russian and Ukrainian Adoption a support network for adoptive families and intending adoptive families
The Brainwave Trust is a New Zealand site with information on brain development
The Orphan Doctor site, is designed to educate families hoping to adopt children. It provides users with relevant medical research and definitions, links to other helpful sites and adoption experience stories
Language development in internationally adopted children
Australian Families for Children offer information and support to Australians adopting intercountry
Attach China contains useful information about attachment including articles and stories from parents and children
All aspects of adopting children over the age of two are discussed at Older Child Adoption
Adoption Education and Awarness NZ is a New Zealand based site about adoption which includes lots of useful resources
On Line Discussion Groups
Yahoo offers an online support group for adoptive parents, where a new topic is discussed each fortnight.
Yahoo also hosts the following support groups:
For New Zealand parents and waiting parents of children adopted from Thailand
For New Zealand parents and waiting parents of children adopted from China
For New Zealand parents and waiting parents of children adopted from Lithuania
For adoptive parents thinking of contacting your child's birth family
Eastern European Adoption Coalition is an adoptive family support organization with both pre and post adoption support groups accessible via their mailing list page
Research
Rainbow House International presents the results of their 1997 survey of Russian adoptees.
Journal of the American Medical Association 2005 article "Foreign-born kids have relatively few behavioural problems."
Read the conclusions of the 2008 ISS/IRC study on the adoption of older children.
This 2008 University of Winsonsin study is about how childhood stress can affect the health of children years later.
Resources
Amazon on-line book store for books about adoption
Russian Shop for things Russian
Reactive Attachment Disorder Information to help understand attachment disorder
The National Organization on Foetal Alcohol Syndrome (USA)
FAS Link Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders
The Child Trauma Academy contains information useful to parents of children who have been neglected or abused prior to their adoption
The International Adoption Article Directory contains articles about most of the issues which families with children adopted from another country face
Travel
Find out local weather conditions at your travel destinations
Book hotel or apartment accommodation and rental cars in Bucharest, Romania
Click here to read some online articles you may find interesting.