c7514

Child's name: Charles
Number: C7514
Birthdate: 10/98
State: Washington
Listed: August 2009

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

CHARLES (10/98) is a handsome boy whose good looks reflect his biracial heritage. He has dark, loose curly hair and dark, attractive brown eyes. Charlie has significant connections to three different families who visit him regularly. Two are prior caretaker families and one a prior foster grandmother. All of these families maintain relationships with him because they grew to care so strongly for him when he lived with them.

Charlie has been making important gains over the past eighteen months in his emotional and behavioral development. He is in a residential treatment where he has lots of structure and supervision with a very consistent, predictable daily routine, clear rules, expectations, and limits, and emotional safety from experienced child care staff and counselors. While Charlie’s developmental delays, impulsiveness, and low tolerance for frustration are challenging, he also has residual effects of past trauma that include difficulty trusting adults and being fearful of his own feelings.

Charlie’s overall social, emotional, behavioral and cognitive functioning is much like that of a six or seven year old. Not surprisingly, he plays and interacts best with children in that age range.

For school, Charlie is in a self-contained classroom part time with a one-on-one aide and an individual education plan with academic and behavioral supports. The folks involved in his residential treatment program are concerned about his inability to read and are asking his teachers to assign activities and homework that they could help Charlie with in the evenings. Recommendations will be incorporated in his placement when Charlie graduates or is discharged from the treatment program.

Charlie’s social worker is looking for couples and single moms and dads who have infinite patience and kindness to bring to parenting him, as well as the ability to provide lots of structure, supervision, and clear rules and limits. It will be essential for his adoptive folks to be willing to support and participate in his treatment program, and to be willing to have therapeutic supports in place as a routine part of his support system, at least for the foreseeable future.

It is wonderful that despite his many challenges, so many caregivers have found so much to love and treasure about Charlie. It seems clear that in the right family with the right supports Charlie could truly blossom and realize his potential. Having experience with the daily needs of children who have developmental disabilities could be very useful in helping Charlie succeed.

Subsidy and Purchase of Service may be available.

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