Adoption Attorneys

Government Insights cites the emphasis PMA puts on eGov to strengthen government’s citizen service and the fact that the OMB scorecard does not measure citizen service. This study predicts that without performance measures in place to drive agencies toward that goal, the citizen centered mandate may be left unfulfilled.

“For all the emphasis the PMA admirably puts on leveraging eGov to strengthen government’s citizen service, the OMB scorecard exhibits a serious deficiency in actually taking that initiative,” says Jenny V. Whitmer, senior research analyst for Program Management and Controls at Government Insights. “Given the powerful influence the performance measures in the OMB scorecard are having on agencies, it is critical to assess how well it is driving efforts toward the PMA goals. None of the scorecard criteria measure citizen satisfaction,” she added.

For better or worse, performance measures drive the direction of an organization’s efforts, according to Whitmer. “It is important to make sure that the behavior that OMB is attempting to influence is contributing to the stated strategic goals of making it easier for the citizenry to be informed and have readier access to government services,” added Whitmer.

About the market research report

The Government Insights report, “Citizen-Centered eGovernment Needs Performance Measures for Success” (Doc #GI204403), highlights the PMA eGov Initiative, the OMB scorecard that measures agencies progress in expanding Electronic Government (eGov) and provides a snapshot of recent agency scores. Government Insights provides examples of how OMB could include citizen centricity from international governments and organizations. Additionally, several US organizations that are involved with projects that measure citizen feedback regarding government are cited.

The Devil’s Dungeon Haunted House at 510 Davidson St. in East Nashville has its final day Oct. 31. Hours are 7-10 p.m. Admission is $10. Parental discretion is advised for children 14 and under. For details, call 256-0053 or visit www.devilsdungeon.net.

Trunk-or-treat: Andrew Price Memorial United Methodist Church at 2846 Lebanon Pike will hold a trunk-or-treat for children of all ages 6:30-7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 31, in its parking lot. A catacomb service will be held in the youth room at 7:30-8:30 p.m. Seating begins at 7 p.m. All activities are free. 883-2321.

Fall Festival: Bellevue Grace Assembly of God, 7301 Hwy 70S, will have a fall festival for all ages 6-8 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 31. The event will feature carnival style games, food, candy and prizes for all. Costumes are optional. All activities are free. Call 646-5947 for more information.

“Trunk or Treat!”: Trunk or Treat at Broadmoor Family Worship Center, 215 Broadmoor Drive, 5:30-8:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 31. The event will feature candy, hot cider, hot chocolate, fire truck climb-ons and more. For more information, call 262-1497.

Pub Crawl: Fourth Annual East Nashville Pub Crawl is 7-11 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 31 in Five Points, sponsored by Yazoo Brewing Company. Wear your scariest or funniest costumes and make your way with Lightning 100 and All the Rage to Alley Cat Lounge, Three Crow Bar, Beyond the Edge, Batter’d & Fried Boston Seafood House and Red Door East. At each location participants will enjoy drink specials, prizes, costume contests, and more. Visit all five locations on the crawl and qualify to win Predators tickets, concert tickets and an autographed guitar.

Pumpkin festival: Goodlettsville Parks and Recreation will host the annual Pumpkin Festival at Moss-Wright Park, 745 Caldwell Lane, on Wednesday, Oct. 31. Children can begin trick-or-treating on the trail at 5 p.m. There will be games, hayrides through the park, inflatables, pony rides, a trackless train and more. Call 851-2218.

Councilmen to give free candy: District 1 and District 2 Councilmen Lonnell Matthews and Frank Harrison are coordinating a Halloween Safe Place for trick-or-treaters at Northwest YMCA, 3700 Ashland City Highway 5:30–7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 31. The councilmen will distribute candy free of charge to community children. For details, call Rachel Fletcher at Northwest Y, 373-9622.

Book reading: Novelist and short story writer Robin Lippincott will read from his work at Vanderbilt University at 8 p.m. Oct. 31 in room 126 of Wilson Hall on campus. The reading is part of the Gertrude Vanderbilt and Harold S. Vanderbilt Visiting Writers Program for the fall semester. It will be recorded for podcast on VUCast, the Web site of Vanderbilt News Service, at www.vanderbilt.edu/news/.

Prayer Breakfast: The Bellevue Family YMCA and J. L. Turner Lifelong Learning Center’s Christian Emphasis Committee invite the public to a Prayer Breakfast 7-8 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 1, at Harpeth Heights Baptist Church, 8063 Highway 100. Terry Hemmings, president and CEO of Provident Music Group, will speak about his role with Facing the Giants, an inspirational film about football and faith. Breakfast will be provided free, courtesy of Loveless Café. To RSVP, call Bellevue Y, 646-9622.

The Hall County Spelling Bee will be Saturday at Northwest High School.

Students from elementary and middle schools in Hall County will compete for the right to represent the county at the Regional Midwest Spelling Bee in Omaha.

The written contest will begin at 9 a.m., and all students who spell at least 70 percent of the words correctly during the morning session will qualify to compete in the oral contest, which will begin at 1 p.m.

There will be a champion oral speller for each grade, and the county champion will be the last person remaining in the oral competition.

G.I. man released from hospital after accident

A 37-year-old man was released from St. Francis Medical Center Thursday after an accident involving a Grand Island police officer Wednesday morning.

Walter E. Painter, 3720 W. State St. Unit I-11, was admitted to the hospital after the 1990 GMC Sierra pickup he was driving collided with officer Danny Dubbs’ 1998 Ford Crown Victoria patrol car at 5:19 a.m. Wednesday.

The accident occurred at the intersection of Capital Avenue and St. Paul Road.

Dubbs’ patrol car was northbound on St. Paul, approaching Capital Avenue. Painter’s pickup was eastbound on Capital Avenue and collided with Dubbs’ car in the intersection.

Dubbs, 44, who was wearing a seat belt, was not taken to the hospital by ambulance.

Painter was not wearing a seat belt.

It will be a glorious celebration for the 36-year-old nurse as she and her husband, Chris, share it at multiple family gatherings.

With them this year is Trevor, their baby boy who was born during halftime of the Super Bowl as the Rolling Stones tore through a set of their hits at Ford Field.

He is almost 11 months old, able to stand and just about to turn stumbles into a full-blown walk. Brighteyed and willing to smile for a photograph, he is able to sign “more” and “all done” and doesn’t mind sharing his toys.

Trevor celebrates his first Christmas today, though for his parents, he is the gift.

“For all the ones I didn’t want to celebrate, this one I cannot wait for,” Audrey Kalasky said of the holiday. “I’m going to be the first one at the party and the last one to leave.”

After years of failed fertility treatments and a lost chance at an earlier adoption, the miracle of parenthood finally arrived in February for the couple.

They married 5 1/2 years ago, though their paths must have crossed at some point before meeting.

“We led parallel lives,” said Chris Kalasky, 36. “We both grew up in Troy and went to Michigan State (University). But we met on a blind date.”

Once married, the couple wanted to have children, and when that did not occur, they started the various treatments, experiencing regular disappointments over a couple of years. They were always open to adoption.

“That seemed to be the answer that we wanted, because we both wanted a family,” Audrey said.

The stress of waiting was difficult, though.

As news of others’ good fortune came regularly, they were happy for family and friends who were expecting. But it stung also, reminding them what they were missing and might never get.

“Every time you turned around, one of our friends was pregnant,” Chris said.

Or there was a baby in their church receiving oohs and ahhs from fellow parishioners.

And then there was Audrey’s job as a nurse at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, where she works in the pediatric intensive care unit and the neonatal unit.

Enterprise resource planning vendors are wagering that the coming years will see government agencies make a big push to purchase Web-based applications to amend or replace their legacy systems.

Half of all U.S. federal, state and local government agencies still rely on such systems, and about 70 percent of those are looking to implement ERP in the next five years, according to research firm Meta Group, Stamford, Conn.

Market leaders SAP Public Sector and Education Inc., Washington; Oracle Corp., Redwood Shores, Calif.; and PeopleSoft Inc., Pleasanton, Calif., have migrated away from client-server to Web-enabled versions. Another major competitor, American Management Systems Inc. of Fairfax, Va., is adding modules, such as e-procurement, to its government-specific accounting products.

Changes also are afoot at some of these companies as they gear up for what they hope will continue to be a fast-growing market.

SAP is about to announce Tom Shirk as the new president of its public-sector unit. Shirk, who has been with the company for 12 years, joins John “Jack” Carson, former Agriculture Department chief financial officer, who is vice president of federal business development.

Carson, who joined SAP in June, dismissed the notion that the new regime was brought in to boost unsatisfactory growth. He called the change in leadership a part of “a natural growth process from entering this market three years ago.”

On Sept. 1, PeopleSoft shipped its federal and state and local versions of PeopleSoft 8, which has been re-engineered for the Web. The release adds a customer relationship management component, performance management, e-procurement, increased flexibility for business processes and compliance with XML standards, easing integration. The city of New York is to install the new version.

Like other ERP vendors, PeopleSoft considers government “one of our hottest verticals,” said Jon Gearhart, public-sector director for PeopleSoft. He cited the company’s 930 public-sector clients, roughly a quarter of its international customer base.

SAP and Oracle can count fairly equal numbers of customers, according to the Meta Group. Oracle said more than a fifth of its $10.1 billion annual worldwide revenue is derived from the public sector.

Ray Bjorklund, vice president of consulting services for market research firm Federal Sources Inc. of McLean, Va., adds a word of caution regarding ERP. Although government spending on ERP has been growing at about 5 percent to 10 percent annually during the past several years, Bjorklund expects that growth rate to level off slightly, because ERP solutions are based largely on private-sector business processes that are not always applicable to the public sector.

“It’s like putting a square plug in a round hole,” he said.

Bjorklund, who pegs the government market for ERP and related customer relationship management services at $3.4 billion in 2001, said that government spending on ERP “will continue to grow, but not as fast as it has been.”

Vendors continue to tailor ERP for federal, state and local government-specific needs, such as compliance with the Joint Financial Management Improvement Program. The vendors also are adding modules, such as property tax management, and are making other changes to streamline implementation and balance flexibility with the desire to minimize the need for customization.

E-government initiatives are credited for much of the interest in Web-enabled ERP. E-government helps reduce training costs, requires a less burdensome technical infrastructure and, perhaps most important, brings the implementing agency political clout and prestige.

For 34 newly adopted children, the prospect of unconditional love was born in a courthouse yesterday.

Angel, 2, loves vanilla pudding. Tayvon, 2, has a penchant for chasing his dogs around the dinner table. And Paul, 4, helps build model planes and dreams of being a pilot.

Clutching teddy bears and clambering over seats at the balloon-festooned third floor of the Moultrie Courthouse, the three were among dozens to walk away from the 21st-annual D.C. Adoption Day with a permanent home and proud new parents, all of whom had fallen for the children and earned their trust during months and years of foster care.

The event, timed to coincide with National Adoption Day on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, aims to encourage area residents to adopt or foster a child.

Last fiscal year there were 234 adoptions in the District. This year, an additional 200 children in foster care await adoption, according to the D.C. Child and Family Services Agency. Most of them come from neglectful homes, with parents with a history of substance abuse, mental health problems or who exercise inappropriate or excessive discipline, said Anita M. Josey-Herring, presiding judge of family court, a division within D.C. Superior Court. Currently, 2,600 cases of neglect are pending, she said.

Speakers repeated the same message, almost like an incantation: Could you be a prospective foster parent? Call 202-671-LOVE, the Child and Family Services Agency adoption hotline.

The smallest speaker of all, D’Juantez Brown, 9, barely peeped over the lectern as he read a poem dedicated to his grandmother, who had just adopted him:

You are the one by my side when nobody else is there

You are the one I can always count on

You are always there to care

You help me through the times, in foster care, and when I lost my hope . . .

You have a special place in my heart

That’s why you are like a mother.

D’Juantez and his brother, Aaron, 2, had been floating in foster care limbo since Aaron suffered a broken arm and head injuries at 2 months. D’Juantez went to live with his paternal grandmother, Anita Hall, who had cared for him intermittently since infancy. James and Cindy Taylor made a home for Aaron, who suffers from seizures.

“He’s catching up,” James Taylor said of his new son, who can’t talk much and has a learning delay of about six months. So that the brothers never grow apart, the Taylors and Hall arrange visits to each other’s homes every weekend.

Angelica Cepero, 15, had been in 10 or 11 foster homes — she has lost count — since she was removed from her mother at age 9. She ran away from each, then found love and a permanent home with Catherine Johnson in 2005.

Broadened Agency Adoption, Homeland Security Initiatives, and Consolidation of Redundant Systems Drive Steady Growth over the Next Five Years.

The federal market for knowledge management solutions will grow from $850 million in FY 2004 to almost $1.1 billion in FY 2009, a 29 percent increase in spending, according to a report released today by INPUT, the leading provider of government market intelligence. The projected increase is driven by heightened pressures to eliminate redundancies between agencies, to improve information sharing among agencies for improved homeland security purposes, and to improve overall agency performance by leveraging a broader, inter-agency knowledge base.

In the Federal Knowledge Management MarketView report, INPUT predicts homeland security initiatives, including a renewed emphasis on information sharing, will continue to drive the market. “Since September 11, knowledge management solutions have moved to the forefront of technology-related homeland security initiatives,” said Chris Campbell, senior analyst, federal market analysis at INPUT. “Knowledge management solutions play a key role in helping tear down unwarranted information stovepipes within the federal government; and in facilitating the sharing of homeland security information with states, localities, and relevant private sector entities. Ultimately, improved information sharing government-wide will in turn help improve security within our borders.”

Administration goals and federal management objectives also represent a significant driver of federal investments in knowledge management products and services, according to INPUT. The Administration and OMB are placing increasing pressures on federal agencies to improve performance by establishing metrics for IT investments. Agencies are also being encouraged to consolidate redundant systems by sharing a single application between multiple agencies. INPUT’s analysis indicates that the federal agencies are actively trying to meet OMB’s goals. An analysis of the FY2005 budget indicates that knowledge management spending is more diversified at the department level than in previous years, placing more emphasis on consolidating systems and improving inter/intra-agency knowledge sharing. INPUT predicts this trend in spending to continue over the next several years.

“Growth will be driven in the outer years of this forecast as federal agencies become increasingly comfortable with the application of knowledge management technologies and as performance data is collected on implemented systems,” said Campbell. “We expect knowledge management spending to be more widespread across numerous agencies as they focus on homeland security as well as complying with federal management objectives.”

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Leonard and Carissa Columbus, a recently married couple living in suburban Detroit, were unable to have children but desperately wanted to be parents. Sara Vanpopering, the 19-year-old mother of two small children, found single parenthood difficult and was seriously considering giving up her children for adoption. One might have thought the intersection of these lives could result in a happy ending for all involved. Instead, it ended horrifically earlier this month with the death of six-month-old Tyler Vanpopering and the suicide of the Columbus couple.

The Southgate, Michigan, community and Downriver Detroit area were shocked and saddened by the deaths. Coverage in local newspapers and television broadcasts provided the standard non-explanation for such a social tragedy: inexplicable—how could it happen?—we’ll never understand. Southgate Police Chief Larry Hall described it as “a tragedy beyond belief.”

But delving into the set of circumstances surrounding the case, a picture begins to emerge of lives wrought with stress, economic hardship, and lack of social support. These conditions—which resulted in personal tragedy for the Vanpopering and Columbus families—affect the daily lives of many parents, who find that desire to be good mothers and fathers, and love for their children, are often not enough to navigate the cruel conditions of contemporary American society.

Leonard Columbus, 35, married Carissa, 25, in May 2003. Though Leonard had a 10-year-old son from his previous marriage, the couple shared a strong desire to have children of their own. Carrisa, a diabetic, had miscarried the last time the couple tried to conceive, and doctors told her she would be unable to carry a child to term.

Like other couples facing infertility, they felt that adoption or finding a surrogate mother were their only options. Adoption costs vary widely in the US, but fees through a private agency can range anywhere from $4,000 to more than $30,000. Although this varies by state, most public agency adoptions—though less expensive, costing from zero to $2,500—only place children with special physical, mental, or emotional needs.

Those seeking infertility treatment also find the costs astronomical. A single in-vitro fertilization (IVF) attempt can cost as much as $10,000, and IVF is rarely covered by medical insurance. Clearly, a wealthy couple has a much better chance of becoming the parents of a healthy baby.

The Columbuses, on the other hand, were struggling to make ends meet. Leonard was an assembly line worker at Ford Motor Company’s Rouge plant in nearby Dearborn. Carissa was on disability from the same plant. Leonard Columbus told Southgate detectives that he was on the verge of filing bankruptcy. His car had recently been possessed. Under these financial conditions, a private-agency adoption was out of the question.

But costs are often reduced when a couple arranges on their own with a woman who is willing to give up her child for adoption, or be a surrogate mother. Kelly Klug told the Detroit Free Press that the Columbuses befriended her last July at the Applebee’s restaurant in nearby Woodhaven, where she worked as a waitress, and eventually asked if she would be willing to serve as a surrogate. She declined, although she commented, “They seemed to be a very loving and devoted couple.”

Last September, the couple met 19-year-old Sara Vanpopering, the mother of six-month-old Tyler and year-and-a-half old daughter McKenzie, through a mutual friend. Like many young, single mothers, Sara had no support system outside of her immediate family. There is no government-sponsored day care for infants and young children in the US. According to some estimates, parents can expect to pay upwards of $800 a month to keep two children in a licensed day care facility, with costs much higher in major metropolitan areas. Non-licensed centers often provide substandard care.

Without barring adoptions by gay families outright, San Francisco’s new archbishop has made it clear he believes that placing children in same-sex households conflicts with Roman Catholic teachings on homosexuality, a spokesman said Monday.

Archbishop George Niederauer therefore has asked the social services arm of the Archdiocese of San Francisco to bring its adoption program “fully in sync” with the church’s views while continuing to find homes for hard-to-place youngsters, said spokesman Maurice Healy.

“Our teaching on marriage and family life precludes these kinds of adoptions,” Healy said. “We need to find another way to help this vulnerable population. How, remains to be worked out.”

Niederauer, who was installed on Feb. 15, first offered his thoughts on the subject last week following an announcement by the Boston Archdiocese that it would stop providing adoption services because Massachusetts law requires gays and lesbians to be considered as prospective parents. Similar laws exist in California and seven other states.

“We realize that there are people in our community, some of whom work side by side with us to serve the needy in society, who do not share our beliefs, and we recognize and respect that fact,” Niederauer said in a written statement.

Since 2000, five of the 136 adoptions facilitated by Catholic Charities of San Francisco have been to gay couples, according to Brian Cahill, the agency’s executive director.

Stressing the small numbers involved and the difficulty of finding homes for the handicapped children Catholic Charities serves, Cahill said Monday that he interpreted the new archbishop’s remarks as a guideline, not a ban.

“Catholic teaching is paramount. Equally paramount are the best interests of the vulnerable children that we serve,” he said. “It is not that gay and lesbian couples come banging down our doors. They are not going to come to an agency that is the social service arm of the Catholic Church.”

Healy said Catholic Charities might be able to complete any adoptions by gay couples that already are in the pipeline, but he was less sure whether Niederauer’s position offered any wiggle room.

Chances are that Americans will look back 30 years from now and wonder what all the fuss was about. At the moment, however, the question of opening the institution of marriage to homosexuals is the subject of an emotional national debate taking place at family dinner tables, state legislatures and in the press.

A “marriage protection” rally in Des Moines on the eve of the Iowa Republican caucuses drew predictable support from Patrick Buchanan in person, but also written support from the party’s presumptive nominee, Senator Bob Dole. Opponents of same-sex marriages invoke religious tradition and family values. Allowing same-sex couples to marry, they assert, would somehow diminish the meaning of marriage for heterosexuals. These arguments, uncomfortably similar to those raised in resistance to repealing miscegenation laws a few decades ago, cannot obscure the entrenched anti-gay bigotry underlying much of the public dialogue. Nor can it disguise the fundamental unfairness of government denying a whole class of citizens the important benefits that flow from civil marriages.

More : query.nytimes.com