Carisa Lee

Re­porter

Carisa.Lee@cnc3.co.tt

The new­born ba­by girl who was found in a garbage bag along the cor­ri­dor of the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal in Au­gust 2022, has been adopt­ed.

News of the aban­doned ba­by girl grabbed head­lines back then, with many peo­ple lat­er con­tact­ing the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty of­fer­ing to take her in­to their care.

But the in­fant, along with an­oth­er ba­by girl who was dumped in­to some bush­es, are now both with “lov­ing fam­i­lies,” ac­cord­ing to the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty.

These cas­es are the rea­son why the act­ing Adop­tion Man­ag­er at the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty, Re­nee Nep­tune, wants par­ents who may be con­sid­er­ing putting their child/chil­dren up for adop­tion, to know that there’s noth­ing wrong with choos­ing that op­tion.

The month of Sep­tem­ber is Fos­ter Care and Adop­tion Aware­ness Month.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view at the au­thor­i­ty’s Queen’s Park West, Port-of-Spain head­quar­ters, Nep­tune said there was still a stig­ma at­tached to plac­ing a child up for adop­tion.

“Per­sons may be want­i­ng to place their chil­dren up for adop­tion but they are afraid to, they are afraid of be­ing judged,” she said.

Nep­tune ex­plained that the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty tries to negate that feel­ing by mak­ing the space com­fort­able, safe and trust­ing.

“We have so many chil­dren de­serv­ing of a lov­ing and car­ing fam­i­ly, per­sons should be more open-mind­ed to­wards it and re­move that stig­ma,” she shared.

In the last year, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 33 chil­dren were adopt­ed but on­ly 10 peo­ple placed their chil­dren up for adop­tion and while it’s a small amount, Nep­tune said it’s an im­prove­ment from years gone by.

Nep­tune, who has been em­ployed with the au­thor­i­ty for about ten years, said fi­nan­cial or men­tal is­sues, as well as a lack of sup­port, were some of the rea­sons peo­ple ex­plored adop­tion op­tions.

“They may have oth­er chil­dren al­ready in their care and fi­nan­cial­ly it’s a strain to main­tain holis­ti­cal­ly an­oth­er child. Some­times they don’t have that fam­i­ly sup­port as well, or some­times per­sons may think ‘okay, just all-round men­tal­ly I am not in that head space to care for this child’,” she said.

Nep­tune said the au­thor­i­ty tries to find oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers who may be will­ing to care for the child be­fore go­ing through with the adop­tion.

“The au­thor­i­ty is not just in the busi­ness of re­mov­ing a child from their fam­i­ly, we will seek oth­er op­tions,” she said.

She said most of the time it’s par­ents who are preg­nant and about to give birth soon who vis­it the au­thor­i­ty to place their child up for adop­tion.

How­ev­er, she want­ed the pop­u­la­tion to know that there were al­so old­er chil­dren in the sys­tem who need­ed a sec­ond chance at life.

“Per­sons may not al­ways be will­ing to adopt an old­er child be­cause they may think ‘okay, well this child may be done set in their ways,’” she said.

Nep­tune de­scribed adop­tion as a very self­less de­ci­sion and she com­mend­ed peo­ple who wish to adopt or place their child up for adop­tion.

She added that it is not about “find­ing a child for a fam­i­ly” but giv­ing that child a fam­i­ly.

The Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty’s Adop­tion Unit can be con­tact­ed at 627-0748 ext 40021, 40022, or 40023 or email (adop­tion@ttchil­dren.org).