Advocacy and Foundation Work
Advocacy
What we do: Since its beginnings in 1986, our faculty and staff have been committed to the health and well being not just of the children adopted into permanent and loving families, but to those who remain in orphanages and group care settings. This tradition of orphan advocacy, led by co-founder Dana Johnson, is strong today, with partnerships and collaborations across the globe. We provide medical consultations to nonprofit groups, serve on advisory boards, and testify before our own Congress and other government bodies throughout the world, all in pursuit of legislative and institutional changes that benefit orphaned children.
YOU can change the lives of children!
With your support we can help prevent and minimize long-term development and mental health challenges facing children who experience early adversity and trauma.
When you fund adoption medicine, you improve the development and mental health outcomes for internationally and domestically adopted children and their families.
When you fund international clinical services and advocacy, your support provides medical care for orphans with special needs who have never seen a doctor, and it allows us to educate officials and caregivers caring for children with syndromes such as cerebral palsy and fetal alcohol spectrum disorders.
When you fund research you can improve the lives of thousands of children. Research informs the evaluation and treatment of children in low-income areas, globally as well as in the US, who all share similar risk factors.
If you would like to support our ongoing work, please contact us for more information or go to this page to make a tax deductible donation.
Research
When Dr. Dana Johnson co-founded the Adoption Medicine Cinic almost all of the advocacy owrk being done was in Eastern Europe. Today, advocacy work continues in many African countries. Dr. Johnson is pictured here on trip to Ndola, Zambia, where he helped collect growth data on more than 300 orphaned children to help advice on how to best care for this population or children in the future.
Education
Despite the best intentions of orphanage employees, most are understaffed, underpaid and undertrained. We have the ability to send specialists--like occupational therapist Megan Bresnahan--abroad to train staff to help orphaned children reach their potential and increase their quality of life. Here, Megan demonstrates exercises to help exercise the muscles of this child in an Ethiopian care center who has cerebral palsy.
Clinical Service
In addition to her annual work testifying to the welfare ministry in South Korea about the benefits of adoption, Judy Eckerle also travels frequently to provide medical care and consultation to low-resource orphanages, such as the one this boy lives in in coastal China.