Special Needs
AAI's commitment to children with special needs
continues into our third decade
From the very beginning, AAI has made placing children with special needs a high priority. For such children, adoption can mean not only love, family, and security, but can also be the difference between life and death. Orphaned children in other countries often do not have access to adequate medical care, therapies, medications, and treatments.
AAI was a pioneer agency in placing HIV+ children for international adoption. Since the official HIV+ adoption program began in 2007, AAI has referred and placed over 100 HIV+ children from Ethiopia, and has placed small numbers of HIV+ children from Ghana, Thailand, China, and Uganda as well.
Since the agency's beginning in 1983, AAI has placed a large number of children of all ages with a wide range of special needs. Medical special needs that we have seen in children available for adoption have ranged from mild and correctable (such as a minor heart condition), to permanent disabilities (such as blindness and cerebral palsy).
Sometimes, a child is difficult to place because he or she is older or a member of a large sibling group. For families experienced with raising, teaching, or counseling older children and who have no younger children in the home, adopting an older child is often an option.
AAI maintains lists of waiting children with special needs. We always have a need for families who are open to younger children with significant special needs. There is also a need for families able to adopt HIV+ children of all ages.
If you are interested in learning more about the HIV+ adoption program or special needs adoptions from Ethiopia, please contact Marquita Thompson at marquita@adoptionadvocates.org. For details of the Chinese Special Needs Program or Thailand special needs program, please check these sections of the website or contact Ky@adoptionadvocates.org. Ghana, Uganda, and Burkina Faso also have waiting children with special needs. Please see these sections of our website or contact Johanna@adoptionadvocates.org (Ghana), Salem@adoptionadvocates.org (Uganda), and/or Gay@adoptionadvocates.org (Burkina Faso).
Also, please contact Johanna@adoptionadvocates.org, for a current password so you can access the photo-listing in the Waiting Children section of this website.