The Summit of the Romania Without Orphan Alliance will be held this year in Cluj-Napoca between 8-10 November 2018 at Grand Hotel Italia .
Over 1,000 adoptive parents, foster parents and social workers, children adopted or placed in foster care, NGO workers, employees and directors of the DGASPC, will come together to discover what we can do best for the sake of our children!
The ARFO 2018 Summit will include:
- over 50 workshops on different topics delivered by national and international specialists,
- motivational sessions, inspiring testimonies,
- debates related to the field of child rights protection and adoption.
The summit will be preceded by 3 pre-conferences starting November 7:
- 7-8 November: Course “Competent Care of Traumatic Children”
- November 7-8: “The Family Matters” – Program to Restore Families and Reintegrate Children in the Biological Family
- November 8: Symposium “Mind Can Heal Your Brain”
Details and enrollments at www.romaniafaraorfani.ro
TZUBY'S KIDS 
I am interested in attending this adoption event with my son that my husband and I adopted from an orphanage in Sibiu in the year 1990. At the time,he was a year old. We did not recognize any significant issues that he had until he started school. Looking back now, we realize that there were some issues, however, they did not appear severe or anything that required interaction of a professional. Our social workers had told us that he needed lots of love and we were certainly prepared to give him that. We did have support from other families that adopted from Romania at the same time and they reported similar interactions with their children. I did discuss what was happening with our social worker and never was attachment disorder discussed. I learned of attachment disorder after seeing a TV program and discovered that our son had similar behaviours as other children with this disorder. I looked for more info and was referred to a psychologist in Michigan who specialized in children with attachment disorder. I attended a conference in Chicago about attachment disorder and discovered that our son was not exhibiting behaviours as serious as most of the children where their parents presented at the conference. Our son, has social disorders, anxiety, and depression that have increased as time as gone by. He is now 28, and has difficulty with relationships, can not seem to hold a job, steals, and has issues with any person of authority.he has been labeled as having ADD and ADHD which I do not agree with these diagnosis’s.
I understand that I should have sought out help from the conference in Chicago, but I was not able to locate anyone that even remotely knew what I was talking about when I mentioned “attachment disorder” and how to deal with it. There was no help to be found. So, as I said, he is 28 and I am hoping that by attending this conference, we may be able to connect with other adoptive parents that have experienced the same issues we have and what they did. I would also like to use this opportunity to visit Romania with our son and perhaps he might be able to make a connectionthat I think he is looking for.
Could you please provide me with info about the event and appropriate hotels, etc..
Thank you so much
I will also contact other parents from our group that adopted from Romania. I know of 2 other families that have already been back to Romania and have connected with birth parents and birth siblings.
Janine Mathers
LikeLike
Hi Janine, we are so happy to hear about your adoption story. We’ll be attending the CAFO event this year and we would recommend the event to you as well. Here you can find details about this year’s Summit in Louisville, KY: https://cafo.org/summit/ Hope to meet you there!
LikeLike