I was contacted by someone who wants to hear from the adoption community. If you have any thoughts to share, please post them in the comments below and I'll be sure my contact reads them. Please feel free to invite anyone within the adoption community to also come by and comment. I'll pass 'em all on!!

I am Alex for South Dakota State Senator Nancy Turbak Berry's office. I am
doing public policy research on adoption. We are hoping to come up with
some positive, helpfull legislation on adoption, such as increased funding,
incentive programs, subsidy programs, just to name a few. Anyways, any
ideas would be great. Right now I am looking at the issue of support for
adoption of special needs children. Also, some other issues we are looking
at are mult-racail adoption policies and same sex couple adoption
policies.

Parents for Ethical Adoption Reform (PEAR) announces it's new initiative to develop a model education program for adoptive parents. We believe that all parents should receive a comprehensive and realistic education prior to adopting. PEAR also feels many parents come to adoption inadequately prepared for the challenges of adoption. We hope to create a parent friendly HONEST education program that will give parents what they need and want in order to assist them in this amazing but often taxing journey.

As part of this initiative, PEAR will be collecting the thoughts, opinions and experiences of current adoptive and prospective adoptive parents. We have created a Yahoo group to help facilitate the easy collection of this information: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PEAR-ED.

If you wish to contribute, but do not wish to join a yahoo group, you may submit your input directly to PEAR at reform @ pear-now.org. After collecting information, resources, and adoption community opinions, the PEAR-ED project intends to create a model education program for use by adoption agencies and prospective adoptive parents.

• Please tell us what you think was helpful or useful about your adoption preparation, what was bad, what could have been better, what you would like to have read, experienced or participated in. 
• Tell us what articles, books, educational materials or programs were best for you and why. 
• Tell us what is needed to prepare parents for the journey of adoption. 
• Review any existing programs you have participated in. 

We invite you to contribute your
own writings and opinions and lists of information. (for large articles, please contact the list management via PEAR-ED-owner @ yahoogroups.com) We invite you to REFER us to the work of others you feel are useful - please do not copy and paste the work of others due to coppyright issues.

PLEASE DO NOT CONTRIBUTE UNLESS YOU ARE WILLING TO HAVE YOUR WORDS AND WRITINGS PUBLISHED at a later date as part of this project. You may contribute anonymously.

Please list your name at the top of your article/list/information *if* you would like to be credited. All materials contributed are deemed to be freely distributable by PEAR-ED.

Unfortunately I can't get this video to load so I'm hoping you're willing to click on through.

Go to YouTube.com to comment on this video! The winning entry will be shown on Mtv and VH1. Spread the good word about open records! The video was created by Mia, Andie, Kevin, and Theresa, four adoptees who generously blog their stories.