My Letter to Senator Amy Klobuchar

Here’s my letter to Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. I encourage all MN adult adoptees and adoptive parents who support adoptees to contact her. The adoption agencies certainly are. Senator Klobuchar’s MN office number is: 612.727.5220. You can also e-mail her here.

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Dear Senator Klobuchar:

I am writing to you in response to your Supporting Adoptive Families Act. As a member of the thousands of Minnesotans who are adoptees, I ask you to please reach out to the adult adoptee community as you look for partners in our state who can help you to champion your legislation.

Contrary to popular belief, much of the post-adoption services that exists here in Minnesota are led by adult adoptees. For years, with minimal budgets, organizations like AdopSource (www.adopsource.org) and AK Connection (www.akconnection.com) have filled the post-adoption service void left by adoption agencies. For years, individual adult adoptees in the state have been responsible for the following: support networks for struggling adult adoptees; mentoring programs that connect adult adoptees with younger adoptees; resources to offer advice, council, and support to adoptive parents, adoptive parent groups, and their children; and groundbreaking research, film, books, and art.

As a former member of the adoption agency profession, I’m fully aware of the lobbying you receive from Minnesota adoption agencies, which have a vested financial interest in bills like your International Adoption Simplification Act, Adoption Fairness Act, and Supporting Adoptive Families Act. However, if you are truly interested in making “sure adoptive families have the support they need,” I strongly encourage you to reach out to the adult adoptee community. History has shown that, even through the good financial times, adoption agencies have offered little post-adoption services. Minnesota adoption agencies have shown more interest in the financial benefits of moving adoptive parents quickly through the adoption process.

Senator Klobuchar, I want to see my tax payers dollars work. I do not want to see my tax payers dollars supporting adoption agencies who have repeatedly squandered opportunities to establish good post-adoption services. Rather, I, along with thousands of adoptees here in the state of Minnesota, would much prefer to see you vest your time in listening and working with adult adoptees. They have walked the walk as adoptees and talked the talk as leaders and innovators. For your convenience, here are names of international adoptee who are respected by adoptees and adoptive parents: Ami Nafzger, AdopSource, anafzger@adopsource.org; Amy Fjellman, Adoptees Have Answers, afjellman@mnadopt.org; JaeRan Kim, jaeran@gmail.com, and Lisa Medici, AK Connection, kmj_medici@hotmail.com.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Kevin Ost-Vollmers
Minneapolis, MN