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Published on 05/29/1995 All articles from this issue

Headline: ACCEPT offers joys of international adoption

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The sounds in Suite 1A at 339 South San Antonio Road are familiar: word processing, a printer, copier, fax and telephone calls punctuate the busy work day.

But the ambience at ACCEPT -An Adoption and Counseling Center, is also enhanced by a pull-apart doll house, Power Rangers, books, toys and dolls, and walls lined with pictures of beautiful children from all over the world. The sounds of these children coming in for follow-up post-placement visits with their happy adoptive parents also fill this professional, warm and friendly office suite, occupied in October 1994 when the three-year old non-profit agency moved from downtown Palo Alto to Los Altos.

In 1992, three women with decades of cumulative experience in the fast-paced, politically charged arena of international adoption joined forces to create ACCEPT. The success of their partnership is the result of hard work and dedication to world wide issues of child welfare.

Welsh-born executive director Bee Brown, has degrees in psychology, family counseling, and a doctorate in anthropology from Stanford. Director of Social Work Marjoie (Marge) Hurwitz, an MSW from the University of California at Berkeley, has devoted her entire professional career to child welfare issues, specializing in foster care, teen-age pregnancy and domestic and international adoptions.

And director of client services, Beverly (Bev) Lamphere is the paperwork specialist who moves the mountain of documents through the federal, state and local agencies that need to approve international adoptions. these three women, and an administrative assistant, staff the office, along with a qualified group of seven social workers "at large" in the Bay Area counties where ACCEPT is licensed to do business.

"ACCEPT works cooperatively with foreign country social services departments" Brown said. "We don't give false promises to our clients. We tell them the difficulties and obstacles up front; we're honest about how long adoptive parents may have to wait for a child, and the cost of these adoptions."

ACCEPT also has relationships with The Russian Liaision, headed by Diana Revutsky, and U.S. Asian Affairs, headed by Norman Niu.

These two organizations serve as facilitators, making the actual logistics of international adoption easier - the travel, the language barriers, the differences in culture - so that adoptive parents traveling abroad can concentrate on the task at hand: bring home a son or daughter.

Recently, U.S. Asian Affairs hosted a luncheon for prospective adoptive parents and families who had already completed a China adoption through ACCEPT. Both Caucasian and Asian parents, married and single - and more than 30 babies - provided a ready-made testimonial to the success of the China program.

"These babies are so healthy, and loved and adorable it makes us all want to bring them home with us," said Hurwitz at the luncheon.

Indeed, Chinese babies are really available for adoption right now, due in part to a population control program in China that sanctions only one child per family. Although Chinese women continue to have babies and relinquish or abandon them, they are well cared for in state-run orphanages and the Chinese government is cooperative in placing them in adoptive homes abroad.

To ensure that the ACCEPT programs continue to run smoothly, Bee and Marge travel several times a year - this year to China, Paraguay, Bolivia and Peru. ACCEPT also has handled adoptions from such countries as India, the Philippines, Taiwan, Japan, African, Eastern Europe, Central and South America, the Dominican Republic and the Caribbean.

But perhaps what makes ACCEPT really work so well is the love, warmth, and professionalism generated by its partners. These three women have nine children of their own (including one adopted and two step-children). They understand that placing children in families where they are truly wanted carries a very special joy.

For more information on ACCEPT, call 917-8090.