ATWAKIDS

Archive for January, 2012

PACT Disscussion Group for Tweens and Teens: Bullying

Jan 31

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Pact Teen Club News

Discussion Group Topic: BULLYING   

Date: Feb. 11th 

Time: 3:30/4:00 pm-7:30 pm

Location: Oakland, CA

Please join us on February 11th at Pact’sTween and Teen Club.  Because we have both tweens and teens participating we have developed a format where high school youth will arrive at 3:30pm and middle school youth at 4pm (allowing us to beat the darkness and enjoy some outdoor activities while it is still light).

Tweens and teens will participate in viewing and discussing the film “Let’s Get Real” that examines issues that lead to taunting and bullying, including racial differences, perceived sexual orientation, learning disabilities and much more from a youth’s perspective.  We will have arts and crafts with a Black History Month theme, hang out time and of course snacks and dinner will be provided.  

 High school youth are invited to work as CITs from 4 to 7:30, participating in the programing and earning community service hours through Pact.

TEENS ONLY(13 and up including those still in middle school)are invited to stay later, helping with a brief clean up and then go hang out a little longer with the mentors for a TBD event locally in Oakland where they will be picked up by their parents around 10 pm.

Please confirm your child’s attendance..

 Register NOW

Registration for this event closes Feb. 6th
 

Teen & Tween Program

Pact’s program is especially for adopted and fostered teens of color – although all adopted and or foster youth are invited to participate. Our Teen gatherings focus on both social and mentoring oriented meetings. Our Mentors/Chaperones will be working every other month on a curriculum specifically tailored to adopted and fostered youth of color.

This program will cater to both younger and older youth in age-appropriate groupings. In the intervening months the youth will be invited to participate with chaperoned social activities. When we talk to parents of teens, they ask for services and groups where their children can find friends who share their experiences and offer opportunities for their children to talk about the deeper that are surfacing about adoption, family, and identity. This year we will have time for the youth to socialize and also incorporate creative and expressive ways to think about their lives as adopted and fostered people.

Our Tween group meets at the same time as our Teen group, but has its own mentors and activities. The teen years can start as young as ten or eleven, and have often been compared with the preschool years because of the dramatic changes that occur during the move to greater independence. Tweens develop a new ability to be introspective and analytical and develop new views of the world, some of which may be challenging to adults. Emotionally, their job is to become “their own person.” For adopted and foster kids, this raises identity issues perhaps on a deeper level than has ever been possible before. Parents looking for groups or activities that feel safe and wholesome, want a place where their children can find friends and share their experiences, and we look to support the Tweens as they move into official Teen status.

Youth 10 to 18 are eligible to participate.    
Click Here For More Information 

CIT Program
CIT Program for Adopted and Fostered Youth of Color (and their siblings)

Age 16 and up

Our Teen Club CIT program gives older teens the opportunity to participate with the younger youth in a mentorship role while earning Community Service Hours (5 hours per month). Being a CIT at Pact Teen Club will be fun, but also demands a lot of hard work and responsibility. It’s important to realize that if you are accepted, you become part of the team that makes Teen Club work for younger kids.

CIT Application

Where & When

2010 – 2011 Schedule:
Teens & tweens will meet monthly, on the following dates:

  • October 1, 2011- Black Cowboy Festival (Oakland)
  • November 12, 2011- Discussion Group (Oakland)
  • December 10, 2011- Discussion Group (Oakland)
  • January 16, 2012- Bringing the Noise for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (San Francisco)
  • February 11, 2012- Discussion Group (Black History Month) (Oakland)
  • March 17, 2012- Discussion Group (Oakland)
  • April 14, 2012- Dragon Boating and Discussion Group (Oakland)
  • May 19, 2012- Malcolm X Jazz Fesitval (Oakland)
  • June 9, 2012- End of School Party and Discussion Group (Oakland)
  • August, 2012- SF Giants Game (Weekday event)

Dates & Times are subject to change with advanced notice  

Feel free to pass out our flyer to anyone you might think may be interested in attending 

 Register Now 

Pact, An Adoption Alliance

4179 Piedmont Avenue
Oakland, California 94611
510-243-9460

Text/Email Notifications from USCIS

Jan 30

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CIS now has a form you can submit with your I800a or I600a applications.  They will text &/or email you a notification of the status of your application. You will still continue to receive the usual written approval notices, but this helps you track receipt and progress.  Best of all – there’s no fee!  Fill out a completed G-1145 and clip to the first page of your application.  For more information go to the CIS website under their Forms tab and open form G-1145.

USCIS – G-1145, E-Notification of Application/Petition Acceptance

Adopting an Older Child? Expect the Unexpected!

Jan 27

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Adoptive Families on adopting older children:

Parents of newborns, whether through adoption or birth, can follow a mostly predictable pattern. When the baby cries, he’s hungry, needs a new diaper, or is tired. If in doubt about a child-rearing point, parents can turn to countless books and websites, as well as family and friends. And each time they meet their child’s need, parents reinforce a mutual attachment.

What happens, then, to children whose needs are not consistently met in their early months and years?

See the rest of this article here!

International Adoptees from Eastern Europe and Central Asia Explore Their Roots

Jan 26

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The Washington Post recently featured a story about two teenaged adoptees from Eastern Europe who decided to visit their native counties to explore their background and meet their birth family.

 Read the article

 

Celebrating Chinese New Year with My Adopted Daughter

Jan 24

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The New York Times has a great article online today about an adoptive family celebrating Chinese New Year with their Chinese daughter.  Read the whole thing here: http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/23/celebrating-chinese-new-year-with-my-adopted-daughter/?src=recg

 

Celebrating Chinese New Year with My Adopted Daughter

By KJ DELL’ANTONIA
Rory rolls a circle of dough.

At least we made dumplings.

Today is the first day of the Chinese New Year celebrations, which means that in most of this country, where businesses do not shut down for the holiday, families marking the new year did so over the weekend. My family, which is composed of two parents and four kids, one born in China, celebrated, too. We went to two very different parties. And we sat, as we have many times before, around our dining room table, tucking a meat filling into small pockets of dough….