Church serves as adoption office

By Sara StrongClaudia Fletcher knows a thing or two about adoption. With her 10th child on the way, and one entering college, she’s done it all — or most of it — including domestic, international, infant and older-child adoptions.Now, the Luverne resident is available to help local families adopt, or to at least help them understand what the process would entail."I’ve helped some local families adopt, but there seems to be a need in this part of the state," Fletcher said.Fletcher will be a part of an adoption open house and informational meeting at 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 20, in the United Methodist Church, Luverne.Her husband is the pastor at United Methodist, the Rev. Bart Fletcher. The church will serve as an office for the new adoption agency and has a separate phone number 449-4357, where she will be available from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. most days. Claudia may be reached by e-mail at claudiapfrc@iw.net.Permanent families"Anybody interested in any type of adoption can come here and I’ll help them, and if they want, I can refer them somewhere else, too," Fletcher said.The new office is a branch of the Permanent Family Resource Center, Fergus Falls.PFRC is a four-year-old, private, non-profit adoption agency with three other branch offices.Director Mary Jane Westra said, "We’re really excited about having Claudia there. She’s a great advocate, yet she’s the first to tell you it’s not easy."Adopting isn’t always easy because waiting older children have been taken away from parents who couldn’t care for them, and were often bounced through the foster care system."I’m not shy about saying that our primary goal is for children already waiting in the system," she said, although other types of adoption are covered by the agency.People don’t have to be rich, married homeowners in order to be considered adequate adoptive parents, as some might think.Workers for the agency contact county social service workers to find children who are in foster care and need a permanent family. They then match those children to families they have approved through home studies and extensive interviews."We feel that foster care is a necessary system," Westra said. "But we feel it’s not a place to raise families."Westra herself has nine children, five adopted.She said, "If you’re willing to go through the challenges, there are lots of joys. The rewards aren’t always immediate, but you take them where you can get them, because they’re there."Placing waiting children is a challenge in itself because it requires adoptive parents to go through it for the good of the children — not to fill a void or because they just want to be parents, as is often the case with newborn adoptions. They often get imperfect children with scars — and the new family portrait may reveal major differences.Westra stays motivated because there are still 140,000 children left to be placed before they lose their chance for a family when they’re 18."If you don’t have parents when you’re 18, where do you go for Christmas? Who do your own children call grandma or grandpa? Eighteen-year-olds still need their families." To date Permanent Family Resource Center has made 55 child placements with nine placements pending. Of these 55 children placed:
26 children were between the ages of 0 and 5 at the time of placement
18 children were between the ages of 6 and 10 at the time of placement
11 children were between the ages of 11 an 18 at the time of placement
22 children are of African American heritage
2 children are of Asian heritage
9 children are of Biracial heritage
14 children are of Caucasian heritage
4 children are of Hispanic heritage
4 children are of Native American heritage
40 children were placed as part of a sibling group