Recent News at Alliance for Children...

Our "Journey of Hope" Campaign in China a Success!

Read our Blog chronicling the Journey of Hope!

We traveled to Shanghai, China in the summer of 2009 and spent two days meeting 28 *wonderful* special needs orphans there, ages 3-13. We are very pleased to report that through the hard efforts of our staff and many helpful Alliance families, we were able to match 26 of these amazing children with forever families by February 2010! Thank you to everyone who helped us with this worthy effort. We are so happy for the children and their new families!

USCIS Update: Change of Filing Location for Form I-600 and I 600A

WASHINGTON-U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) today announced a new address for prospective adoptive parents to submit Form I 600, Petition to Classify Orphan as an Immediate Relative, and Form I 600A, Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition. While the change takes affect today, applicants have a 30-day transistion period before USCIS will return incorrectly filed petitions.

Applicants were previously required to file at a local USCIS field office. The Direct Mail Program allows USCIS to process applications more efficiently by eliminating duplicative work, and maximizing staff productivity.

Beginning today, applicants in the United States, who are filing to adopt an orphan, must submit Forms I 600, I 600A, and all supporting documents and fees to the following address:

USCIS will forward incorrectly-filed Forms I-600A and I-600, application fees and supporting documents to the Lewisville, Texas facility for the 30 days, until Friday November 6, 2009. Forwarded applications will be considered properly filed when received at the Lewisville, Texas facility.

Beginning Monday November 9, USCIS will return to the applicant any Form I 600 or I 600A, and supporting documents, incorrectly submitted to a USCIS office in the United States. The applicant will be instructed to mail the application to the Lewisville, Texas address. However, applicants may continue to file extensions of approved Forms I-600A at their local USCIS field office. More information is available on the revised form instructions.

Prospective adoptive parents, who reside abroad, may continue to file the Form I-600A with a USCIS international office, or they may send the petition to the Lewisville, Texas address if they have an address in the United States they plan to return to.

U.S. citizens outside the United States may continue to file the Form I-600 at a U.S. Embassy, U.S. Consulate or USCIS office abroad that has jurisdiction to accept the petition. However, in order to file a Form I-600 petition abroad, the petitioner must have an approved Form I-600A and be physically present in the country where they are filing.

The I-600A and I-600 form instructions have been updated to reflect the new filing locations. They are be available under the "Forms" section. The forms are also available by calling the National Customer Service Center at 1-800-375-5283.

For more information on USCIS and its programs, visit <www.uscis.gov>.

Email Newsletters
Alliance For Children has a new monthly email newsletter. If you're not on our mailing list and would like to be added to receive these emails, please sign up below. You can unsubscribe at any time and your email address won't be used for any other purpose.

Sign up for our Email Newsletter

Angels in Adoption

South Carolina Family Honored as an Angel in Adoption in Washington DC Ceremony, October, 2007

South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint has nominated Patrick and Marchie Thornton of Mount Pleasant for their outstanding advocacy of adoption. The Thorntons adopted their daughter Anna Vera from Russia with the help of Alliance for Children, and since her arrival have become enthusiastic advocates for adoption. The Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute (CCAI), which orchestrates the Angels in Adoption program, will honor the Thorntons, along with more than 180 other Angels, at an awards ceremony and gala event in Washington, DC, October 4, 2007. To read the full press release, please visit the South Carolina branch office page of the Alliance for Children web site.

Procter & Gamble Contributes $50,000 to Alliance for Children Foundation Project to Support Orphans in China

P & G’s Live, Learn and Thrive™ Program Will Help Change the Life of Children in Need By Supporting Family Style Foster Villages

Wellesley, MA – May 18, 2007 –The Alliance for Children Foundation today announced a $50,000 donation from Procter & Gamble’s Live, Learn and Thrive Global Cause to fund a foster care village in China for orphans who are currently living in institutional settings. The Foundation currently has two such villages in operation there that have become the “gold standard” for innovative social intervention addressing quality of life as well as basic care and wellness for orphaned children in need.

“It is our privilege to work with P & G, one of the world’s most socially conscious global companies, because both of our organization's missions focus on providing children with a healthy start and providing otherwise unattainable opportunities and the required skills to become responsible adults,” said Filis Casey, Executive Director of the Alliance For Children Foundation.

The Alliance’s innovative and successful family style living model was developed six (6) years ago to assist orphaned children from 3-14 years of age, many with special needs, by providing a small group living experience outside of an institutional setting. The objective is to give children without families a secure and loving home with surrogate parents and siblings, schooling, consistent attention, and individual care. “It is no surprise that research shows that children thrive better in families rather than institutions,” said Casey “The extraordinary gift from P & G insures that more children will have an opportunity for a successful future.”

Alliance’s Family Style Living Villages take the foster care model several steps further, nurturing children with a strong sense of belonging within a family unit and supportive community, and instilling the confidence and skills that will enable these children to plan for bright futures.

“We believe the work of the Alliance is critical to the healthy all-around development of children in need, which is a natural fit with our Live, Learn and Thrive cause. The Family Style Living Villages have shown positive results, and we’re proud to be a part of taking this concept to more children who need it most,” said Brian Sasson, Manager of the Live, Learn and Thrive cause at P&G.

Each foster village is a partnership with the Chinese government, which provides the residential building, and the Alliance Foundation, which subsidizes living expenses for the resident families. The program recruits qualified and appropriate surrogate parents, with or without their own children, to live in a modern and sanitary three-bedroom apartment. One parent works in the nearby area, and the other is a homemaker, taking care of the children. The idea is to create normal family surroundings. Each pair of surrogate parents hosts six orphans of mixed ages to create sibling relationships. Special needs children are housed with non-special needs children. The children become part of the community, attend local public schools along with the other children in the neighborhood, and receive medical and dental care within the local community.

Presently, Alliance has established two such villages which it currently supports in the cities of Ma’anshan and Hefei, both in Anhui Province. With the Procter & Gamble funding Alliance will establish a third village this year in the city of Wuzhou in Guangxi Province. Plans for a fourth village are being considered.

About the Alliance for Children Foundation

The Alliance for Children Foundation (The Foundation) is a Massachusetts based international relief organization dedicated to improving the physical and emotional well being of children living in institutions in Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America. The Foundation's projects in medical care, basic needs, and education seek to heal, strengthen and empower the world's most vulnerable children, especially those who are less likely to be adopted due to age or special needs. Its programs provide these children with an otherwise unattainable opportunity for a better future.

The Foundation was established in 2000 to implement humanitarian aid programs to help children without families to be safe and to thrive, to realize their potential, and to build successful lives as adults. Foundation programs fall within three broad categories:

1. Basic Care – providing food, shelter and clothing to children enduring desperate living conditions. These projects include access to clean water, basic nutrition, sanitation, air conditioning and heat, beds and bedding, and laundry equipment.
2. Medical, Rehabilitative, and Wellness Care – facilitating surgical interventions and medical care for children living with illness, deformity, or mental impairment while also seeking to increase preventive care. Projects include surgeries for children with facial deformities or physical defects as well as providing other medical/surgical procedures, medicines, vaccines, rehabilitative equipment, therapy, and preventative medical and dental care.
3. Quality of Life Care – improving the quality of life for children who are unlikely to find families because of age or special medical issues. Projects include providing a safe loving environment, teaching basic life skills, social integration, teaching vocational skills, building and stocking institutional libraries, establishing computer labs, and duplicating family-style living projects for homeless or institutionalized children.

For more information on the Alliance for Children Foundation, please visit www.afcfoundation.org

About Procter & Gamble

Three billion times a day, P&G brands touch the lives of people around the world. The company has one of the strongest portfolios of trusted, quality, leadership brands, including Pampers®, Tide®, Ariel®, Always®, Whisper®, Pantene®, Mach3®, Bounty®, Dawn®, Pringles®, Folgers®, Charmin®, Downy®, Lenor®, Iams®, Crest®, Oral-B®, Actonel®, Duracell®, Olay®, Head & Shoulders®, Wella, Gillette®, and Braun. The P&G community consists of almost 140,000 employees working in over 80 countries worldwide. In these countries and beyond, P&G is committed to improving lives for children in need, ages 0-13, through its global corporate cause, Live, Learn and Thrive – helping children get off to a healthy start, receive access to an education, and build skills for life. Please visit http://www.pg.com for the latest news and in-depth information about P&G, its brands, and Live, Learn and Thrive.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Filis M. Casey
Alliance for Children Foundation
filis@allforchildren.org

Support the Alliance For Children Foundation

Village Automotive

As a proud supporter of the Alliance for Children, Ray Ciccolo will donate $250 to the Alliance for every car you purchase, or for any person you refer to one of his dealerships. Send an e-mail to ray@villageautomotive.com, and he'll direct you to one of his stores, where they'll walk you through the process of selecting the best car for you. For more info on Village Automotive and to see all of his locations, click over to www.villageautomotive.com.

Alliance in the News!

May 9, 2007 - Alliance For Children Executive Director Filis Casey was interviewed recently for a Mother's Day article on FoxNews.com, titled "If Your Daughter Doesn't Look Like You, Are You Still Her Mother?" Click the link to read this article about adoptive families.