THE Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) in Cordillera Administrative Region is conducting a forum on legal child adoption and foster care as part of the activities for the Adoption Consciousness Week from February 15-20.
The forum will be held today (February 9) at the Pages Hall of Teachers Camp, from 8 am to 5 pm. The forum is open to all interested participants who wish to learn on the process of adopting a child.
Edelyn Genove, the focal person on adoption and foster care of DSWD Cordillera, said adoption process may be tiresome as it requires a lot of documentary necessities for prospective parents.
This include marriage certificate, for those with children, an affidavit of consent from their child/children, character reference, certificate of employment, certificates to prove their income and psychological evaluation, National Bureau of Investigation and barangay clearance and health certificate.
For foster care, the prospective parents’ qualifications focus more on their parenting capacity as it is not a permanent placement for the child unlike adoption.
Cordillera has the Reception and Study Center for Children (RSCC) in Wangal, La Trinidad where neglected, abandoned and abused children are being cared.
RSCC supervisor Nelly Mason explained the facility caters to sexually and physically abused, abandoned and neglected children including foundlings’ ages 0-6 years old. She said, however, the oldest they have now is a 9-year-old who was with the center since she was a baby.
The center caters for Region I and Cordillera because the former has no similar facility yet because RSCC is designed as a temporary shelter for these children.
“Children should not stay long in shelters. Growing up in a normal family set up is still the best,” she said.
Mason said children at the center gets adopted, brought to closest relatives for foster care or transferred to other DSWD facility if the other options failed admitting the children in the center are more often adopted by foreigners.
“Local adoption is very hard, maybe because majority of Filipinos are also not that economically capable. But those who tried to adopt say the legal process for adoption in the country is very hard,” she said.
Mason explained the DSWD is strict in choosing families to adopt children; especially those abandoned and abused ones.
“We need to ensure the needs of the child will be met, not the needs of the adoptive family,” she said.
Mason said five children were adopted by foreigners in 2015 and two more were released to foreign adoptive parents last January.
The RSCC has a 35 bed capacity but can cater to more that the bed capacity if needed.
Prospective parents who want to adopt or foster care can go to DSWD office located at 40 North Drive, Baguio City or call 074) 442 7917 for more details or information.