Description
The England Grant of $2500 may be available for qualifying families.
Individualized grant funding for qualifying families may be available through our President’s Grant. Contact us for more details!
***UPDATE***
We are representing sweet Joana and have received an UPDATE. Please look at our new October 2023 photos as well as the new information below. She was born in December of 2017, and her diagnoses are Cornelia de Lange syndrome and congenital cardiac malformation. She is delayed both physically and mentally. The update from October 2023 says the following:
Joana is on pureed food. She can eat with a spoon but to make it faster and easier, they feed her with a bottle. Joana is easy to be fed. She has an appetite. She doesn’t drink from a cup because she has a problem with the swallowing reflex, so they give her everything with a bottle. When she got hungry around noon, she begins to whine, grunt, raise her hands and suck the fingers, most often on her left hand. She is happy after food. When she is thirsty, she shows it by grunting. When I was there, they tried to trick her by giving her a bottle of water, but she immediately felt it and pushed the bottle gently with her hand.
Joana has been able to sit on her own without support for some time. She has recently started to stand up on her own in the crib, holding on to the bars and managing to stay upright for a short time. She can sit on her own (without support) on the ground, as well as on the sofa (with her back against the backrest). She lays firmly on her stomach, with her head firmly raised. She can move from a supine/stomach position to a sitting position without assistance. She has strong abdominal muscles. Joana can move around on her own in the walker (although the walker appears to be quite small for her height), but only when she decides. We failed to encourage her to show it.
According to information from the staff, Joana doesn’t react much to toys. She has no favorite toys, nothing to attract her attention. She actively uses both hands. For a while, however, one of the new toys, and specifically the light toy, managed to get her attention, and with the help of the educator she managed to hold it in her left hand. She doesn’t look at the TV. It’s difficult to be said whether she likes music.
She has no problem with bathing. She doesn’t protest. Joana still sleeps in a crib. She has a peaceful, long sleep. She falls asleep easily. She still has an afternoon nap.
Joana does not speak and does not make specific sounds. She grumbles when she’s hungry and sometimes, aimlessly, she starts uttering something that sounds like “ba-ba-ba-ba”. As feeding time approached, Joana began to make interesting guttural monotonous sounds.
Sudden sounds can startle her. The dark does not bother her. She is extremely calm and shows no signs of aggression/auto-aggression. She has no stereotypical movements although sometimes she will turn her head back and forth.
She has no interaction with other children. She has no preference for a particular adult. It does not bother her for a stranger to tease or touch her.
Currently, she is not taking any medications. She is not in therapy.
After the last medical report, she did not go for additional consultations.
Joana visits at least twice weekly a center for children with disabilities. She has classes with specialists: a psychologist and a rehabilitator. Apart from the visiting resource teacher, there are no on-site specialists at the center. Joana is preschool age, so a resource teacher works with her before lunch. At this time, they are focusing on holding toys in both the right and left hands. She can’t still transfer from one hand to the other.
During the day, Joana spends most of her time in the stroller, except when it’s time for her afternoon nap.
Personal impressions:
Joana is a sweet and gentle little girl who needs a lot of love, cuddles, personal contact, patience, understanding and individual attention and activities.
Throughout the meeting, the child was extremely calm, but often more passive. My teasing, tickling and trying to get her attention proved to be less than successful. It should not be forgotten that Joana is currently being raised in a Family Accommodation Center for children and youth with disabilities. They do not encourage the building of an emotional bond between the staff and the children in order to avoid jealous reactions in the children. It felt like the way they cared for the children was more on a mechanical level– part of their duties. The gentle words and gestures, not only to Joana but also to the other children in the room, was missing.
The child definitely needs a loving and extremely supportive family environment that would have the opportunity to provide her with a lot of hugs, cuddles, attention, more touch and interaction, more adequate and purposeful activities and care, and more individual activities with specialists.
***
We are representing sweet Joana. Please take a look at our new October 2023 photos. More information about her is coming soon! She was born in December of 2017, and her diagnoses are Cornelia de Lange syndrome and congenital cardiac malformation. She is delayed both physically and mentally. For more information contact kathy@wiaa.org. Grant funding available for qualifying families.
For more information, please contact: Kathy@wiaa.org. You will be asked to complete a parent eligibility form before any file information can be released.
Please be aware that children on our waiting list may be under review by multiple families. Additionally, a child’s availability status may change on short notice. Please contact Kathy@wiaa.org for the most up-to-date status of a child.
Disclaimer:
WIA is not responsible for the medical information summarized here. Medical information sent by other countries may be inaccurate or incomplete. Prospective Adoptive Parents reserve the right to have medical information evaluated by a medical professional in the United States.