Birth date: November 1995
Ethno-Cultural Background: European/North American
Birth date: June 1998
Ethno-Cultural Background: European/North American
How about a wonderful brother and sister team to complete your family? At 14 and 10 these two have met many milestones and bring their own interests and abilities with them. They still require the ongoing love and support of a family to continue their growth and prepare them for their independent lives.
Bishop is the older brother. His interests are diverse and include cars, prehistoric animals, aircrafts, weather and arts and crafts. He is currently working on building a hot rod with his foster parent is very excited by the prospect. He also is a cadet, plays volleyball when he can and takes part in track and field. Bishop is lots of fun and loves to laugh. The list of physical activities that Bishop enjoys is amazingly long and includes skateboarding, rollerblading, soccer, swimming, ball hockey on the street, dancing singing and video games. He has done very well in his current foster home where he and Cyndi have lived for the past two years. Bishop has had some problems with school and socialization but the stability and firm limits of his foster home have shown very encouraging results for him. Bishop loves to read which is a quality that will serve him well through out his education. His foster mother adds that Bishop is very easy to manage about 95% of the time.
At 10, Cyndi is described as a ‘girly girl’ who loves hair, fashion and make up. She loves to do puzzles, finger painting and arts and crafts. Cyndi attends brownies and would love to be on the school basketball team. She also enjoys physical activity, especially soccer and loves to laugh and have fun with her brother, when they are not fighting. She is very social and loves to make new friends but generally does better with younger children one on one than in larger groups. Cyndi qualifies for Community Living supports and will continue to throughout her life. Cyndi has one on one support outside the classroom but does not enjoy being removed from the classroom because it makes her ‘different’. This is a change as previously Cyndi loved the social aspect of school. Cyndi has some challenging behaviours that her new family will need to help her with.
Both children are clear that they want a family to grow up in. They both express their unhappiness with the numbers of moves in their lives and want one solid place where they know they won’t have to leave.
Both these children have had a rocky road thus far. They display some behavioural concerns, emotional issues and educational special needs that will need to be discussed in depth between perspective adoptive parents and their social worker. They have both improved a great deal since their placement in their current foster home and have benefited from the experience of having fun with the family. Both children have been assessed at Sunnyhill so their new family will need to review their results and be familiar with the concerns of each prior to consideration.
Adoptive parents should be prepared to provide firm limits with little ‘wiggle room’ along with a loving, fair approach to issues as they arise. The family should have an awareness of the potential impact of a chaotic lifestyle, abuse, neglect and possible alcohol/drug exposure prior to birth on these children’s lives.
The children have had contact with their maternal grandmother most of their lives and ideally, some form of contact would continue.
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