Photographs by Yuen Lui

If you have completed an adoption homestudy and would like to have your information forwarded to this child's worker, contact us.

Legally free, ALICIA (1/98) and LATASHA (10/99) are counting on being adopted together. They have strong sibling bonds. Both girls are very creative, and enjoy drawing, dancing, and coloring. They also enjoy playing house, dressing their Barbies, exploring outdoors, and playing sports. They enjoy going to school, too. Alicia is now in fourth grade. She loves to be successful, whether in her arts and crafts or in completing her homework. Regular positive attention and affirmations from her significant adults encourage her to excel. Latasha is now in second grade. She is bright and friendly, and her very creative imagination is readily apparent in the great stories she creates to share with others. Alicia and Latasha yearn for a sense of belonging and the stability and safety of an adoptive family who will claim them as their own.

While in their birth family, Alicia and Latasha (and their older brother, Kenya, see C6779) were used to operating in a chaotic tradition without much supervision. Even now, when they are together, they all tend to revert to acting out. The children came into foster care in 2004.

Alicia’s foster mom is working with her on being less secretive, telling the truth, making better behavioral choices, and taking responsibility for her choices and actions. For Alicia, who tends to internalize her feelings, weekly mental health counseling and medication therapy is helping her to begin to address past trauma and deal with emotional and behavioral needs. Her difficulty sleeping at night has lessened with medication. About two years behind her grade level in school, Alicia is benefiting from having academic supports for reading and math and extra behavioral supports. While Alicia wants so much to have friends, she has not yet developed the skills to sustain friendships and continues to struggle with peer interactions. She is, though, responding to the “rewards/incentive program” designed to encourage good citizenship and appropriate classroom behavior.

Latasha is also participating in weekly counseling and medication therapy to address her emotional needs and past trauma, as well as attention difficulties and high energy. Latasha seems happy to be learning to put her thoughts and feelings into words instead of acting them out. Her treatment program is also helping her to stay on task and lessen her high energy and impulsiveness. She may also need some speech therapy.

While their worker is especially interested in hearing from two-parent families, she also wants to hear from those terrific single moms with strong support systems of family, friends, and community resources who can provide ample opportunities for the girls to feel connected to their African American heritage. While the girls have done well with one or two other children in their foster homes, the two of them together require a significant amount of parental time and attention. Having a nurturing, structured home with clear rules, expectations, and limits, and on-the spot consequences for misbehavior will help these darling sisters succeed.


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