Time: Thursday, December 13, 2007 at 6:30pm

Place: Krantz & Berman – 747 Third Avenue (46 – 47^th St) 32^nd Floor

In attendance: Marjorie Berman, Acting President, Mary Nealon, Secretary, Tim Stoenner, Treasurer, Amanda Baden, Lily Cardlin, Ross Lewis, Mark Maas, Mary Sellner, Aileen Koger

Absent: Dorothy Crenshaw, Deb Levine, Hollee McGinnis

Minutes recorded by Mary Nealon, Secretary

GENERAL BUSINESS

Treasurer’s report: The fiscal year ended October 31, 2007. With the help of the regional chapters, FCCNY was able to reconcile its year-end accounting. The preliminary financial report indicates that we closed the year with $168,325 in assets of which $137,880 was unrestricted funds. $29,597 was specifically earmarked for FCCNY’s Orphanage Assistance Fund. The net income as of 10/31/07 of $31,472 was greater than last year.

The preliminary year-end report is available on the FCCNY website. The final audit for the year is in progress and is expected to be completed this month and will also be made available to members on the website.

Board Recruitment: So far, we have received applications from two candidates. The deadline for submission of applications is December 31, 2007.

FCCNY Annual Board Meeting was rescheduled to Sunday, March 2^nd from 11:00 – 2:00p, venue to be determined.

EVENTS UPDATES

Holiday Festivities: FCC regional holiday parties are thriving throughout the region thanks to the hard work of volunteers in those chapters.

FCC Travel Fair and Forum: Saturday, January 5^th, 2008 at St. John’s University 101 Murray Street, Manhattan, NY. Last year’s event was an enormous success. Again this year, attendees will be able to hear form parents who recently visited China with their children and some of the travel agencies offering a variety of packages for travel. In addition, this year’s program will include a screening of the new documentary “Found in China”, a workshop with Dr, Jane Aronson, and a panel discussion titled “Resources to help your child grow and thrive in their new home.”

Regional Coordinators Luncheon Event: Sunday, January 27^th 2008 at Packer Collegiate School in Brooklyn at the same time at the Jane Brown workshops. To date, 10 representatives from regional chapters have registered for this event. Forty people have registered in total. Childcare will be provided for children of attendees not enrolled in the Jane Brown workshop. Board members will call regional contacts who have not responded to see if they can attend.

Lunar New Year 2008: FCCNY Board member, Ross Lewis, has been in touch with Janet Wong at the Museum of Chinese Americas (MoCA) to explore the possibility of FCCNY as a partial sponsor of the Chinatown Flower Market event, which takes place over three days from February 2 – 4, 2008 in Columbus Park under a huge heated tent. NYCCC and MoCA are the main sponsors/organizers of this event. We would like to see if we could sponsor some part of the vent so that our membership could join in the festivities on one of the days.

Culture Day 2008: The Board is delighted that Ruth Mullen has agreed to chair FCCNY Culture Day once again. This is Ruth’s 4th year as chair of this signature event. FCCNY conducted an on-line monkey survey of its membership about Culture Day. The survey yielded a big response from our membership who overwhelming wants Culture Day to continue. Most people also responded favorably to Liberty Park, NJ as the CD’s site. Conflicts with the June date were the most common reason given by survey respondents who were unable to attend to last year. Next year’s event will happen in May again. Ruth will attend the next board meeting at which we will discuss programmatic plans as well as budget parameters for next year. So long as the event continues to at least break even, the Board is committed to continue this important event for its membership.

ORPHANAGE ASSISTANCE

Aileen Koger provided an update to the Board on the 2007 Amity programs sponsored by FCCNY’s Orphanage Assistance Fund. For the year 2007, Amity had initially requested $188,750 for a combination of programs that included foster care, grandmas and educational fees for specific infants and children in orphanages in China with Amity programs. At the April board meeting, members approved a distribution of $160,000 to Amity towards these programs, thanks to generous contributions in response to last year’s Orphanage Assistance Appeal.

In its final accounting, Amity reduced its request to $187,206. The slight decrease in costs (the original estimate of program costs was $188,750) was mostly attributed to a slight decrease in programmatic costs in two orphanages.

After reviewing the report presented by Aileen, a motion was made by board member Mary Nealon, to approve the distribution of the remaining $27,806.00 in funds to Amity. The motion was seconded by Marjorie Berman, and unanimously approved the members in attendance.

Discussion followed with Aileen about the relationship between FCCNY’s Orphanage Assistance and the programs we’ve sponsor through Amity. Since FCCNY’s first fundraising efforts undertaken in 1996 to help infants and children in orphanages in China, Amity has essentially been our partner creating and implementing programs in China. Programs such as Amity’s foster care model, the nursing team projects, and the expansion of Amity’s “grandma’s” programs were initially created at our request, with the understanding that we would sustain these programs over the years.

Early on, in discussions with Wu An An of Amity, it was determined that creating a model foster care program was the best way for FCCNY to help infants and young children in the orphanages in China. At the time, the orphanages were overwhelmed with abandoned infants and had too few staff members to provide care for the large number of children. Foster care was unfamiliar to many orphanage directors.

Wu An An had studied social work at a university in the United States. She and her husband had the option of staying in the US after Tiananmen Square but opted to return to pursue charitable work in China. Through her academic and clinical studies here in the US and in the UK, Wu An An became passionate about the benefits of foster care as the best way to ensure the social, emotional and physical well being of infants and children in orphanages.

Wu An An set about promoting foster care to the orphanage directors in China. With funding from FCC NY, she created a model program in Nanjing, with accountability that included specific standards of care, training for foster parents, follow-up monthly supervision, regular home visits, and regular medical care and check-ups for the infants and children in foster care. Special training was provided to educate foster parents about the specific care needed for children with special needs. Many directors were initially resistant to the concept of foster care. Wu An An held conferences to educate other orphanage directors and government officials about the benefits of foster care. FCCNY sponsored some of those early conferences. Orphanage directors soon began requesting help from Amity to set up foster care programs in their orphanages. As recently as June 2007, Wu An An held a conference on foster care for 20 orphanage directors and local supervisors. Laurie Heineman, co-founder of FCC NY, visiting Amity projects in June described a community of foster parents living in the same housing complex supporting each other and providing support and connections for the children under their care with each other.

Over the years, FCCNY’s orphanage assistance efforts have provided the funds necessary for hundreds of children to be placed and raised in loving foster families. For many of these children, we also paid the fees so they could attend school. At one point, schooling was our biggest program, providing educational funds for over 400 children per year.

Depending on ability, children may stay in the orphanage until 16 or 18 years old at which point they can be emancipated. Those with limitations may be transferred to the adult section of the social welfare institute (SWI). While education in Grades 1-9 is compulsory, it is not free for China’s general population. Until recently, capable children in orphanages were unable to gain an education except through charitable initiatives like FCCNY’s orphanage assistance programs. However, the government recently mandated free education in grades 1 – 9 for children in orphanages, which will significantly improve their potential for successful independent living in adulthood. Because of this change in government sponsored education for children in orphanages, FCCNY OA program now only sponsors school fees for 160 children attending preschool, vocational, senior high school, university or special educational needs.

From the beginning, Amity has been exemplary about its accounting of the funds provided by FCCNY and the programming it delivers in China. The annual timeline is as follows:

January – Amity provides final annual report of the previous year’s program costs and specific names, photos, and detailed reports of each child who received services provided by funds raised through FCCNY Orphanage Appeal efforts. FCCNY makes the Amity Annual Report available to its members by request.
February – Amity submits its initial request for funding for the new year to FCCNY Orphanage Assistance Committee. The proposal is based on conversations between Wu AnAn of Amity and members of the FCCNY Orphanage Assistance Committee, during which both Amity and FCCNY explore what is feasible for the upcoming year. Amity assesses which specific infants and children will continue to need support and which programs should be sustained. FCCNY simultaneously determines what fundraising expectations are feasible for the coming year, based on the initial response to the appeal it sends out around the holidays.
March – FCCNY Orphanage Assistance Committee submits the Amity proposal to the FCCNY board for approval. At this time, the committee also requests that FCCNY make a distribution of funds to Amity towards the program costs in the proposal based on funds raised to-date from the appeal.
November - Amity submits preliminary year-end report to FCCNY’s Board of the actual costs for programs provided that year. Based on the remaining funds raised through FCCNY’s orphanage appeal efforts and the actual costs of Amity programs, a second distribution is made to Amity fulfilling that year’s commitment.

Since beginning our work with Amity, each year FCC representatives – members of FCC’s Board, Orphanage Assistance Committee and/or donors – conduct site visits of orphanages and Amity programs sponsored by FCC, seeing first hand the programs in action, the children receiving care and the workers providing the services. FCCNY has also hosted Wu An An for visits to New York to talk with FCC donors directly about Amity and the programs we’ve sponsored.

FCC was among the first organizations to support programs to improve the care of children and infants living in orphanages in China. At the time we undertook our Orphanage Assistance efforts, few non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and minimal international aid existed for orphanages in China. Much of that has changed since FCC began its charitable efforts in China. Now other organizations, foundations and personal funds are also providing funds and creating programs. Some of these entities include

Half the Sky, in conjunction with the Chinese government, is creating Blue Sky Centers in orphanages in China. Some of the Blue Sky Centers are now being established in orphanages where Amity programs existed for years. Recently, Amity has begun to re-assess whether its programs should continue in Blue Sky Center orphanages. Blue Sky programs are focused on improving institutional standards of care, rather than providing foster care. Also, the Blue Sky ‘aunties’ are paid hourly wages to provide care for infants in orphanages. Amity grandmas on the other hand are paid a stipend. In some orphanages, this has created a dichotomy among the workers.
FCC New England partners with provincial civil affairs offices to deliver programs in orphanages in Jiangxi and Hubei provinces.
Children of China Pediatrics Foundation focuses on providing surgeries and medical care for children with physical disabilities, as well as training medical teams in China to perform these surgeries locally.
Altrusa, an umbrella fund largely based in the Pacific Northwest provides funds to Amity for foster care programs and hugging grannies in Jiangxi province.

The Chinese government recently announced changes in its international adoption program because fewer infants are reportedly available for adoption. The anticipated waiting time for a healthy infant is now estimated to be approximately two years. Amity’s annual reports suggest that a large number of the children in orphanages in China have special needs and are therefore considered less adoptable. The most common disabilities are hepatitis B, cleft lip/cleft palate, developmental delay, and congenital heart conditions. One of FCCNY’s biggest foster care programs takes place in Wuhan where we’ve regularly seen older children or children with special needs placed for international adoption and then replaced in our program with children with similar conditions.

Because of all these changes, FCCNY is beginning to engage in conversations with organizations in China to reassess the needs of the children currently in the orphanages. We expect that Amity is also at a similar point of assessing its role in providing programs in orphanages in China. As a model social service organization, Amity has other areas where it provides equally needed programs, such as care for the disabled, rural development, medical services, and disaster relief.

As an Amity program director, Wu AnAn remains committed to developing care programs for orphanages in China. However, are the orphanages currently receiving funds and programs the ones with the greatest needs? Could our funds be better used in orphanages receiving less central government support and/or funding and programs from other organizations?

These are all questions that FCCNY will explore in the coming year. The FCCNY Orphanage Assistance Committee will begin a formal assessment process, seeking to gather information from Amity as well as other US-based organizations providing programs and funds to orphanages in China, such as Half the Sky, FCC New England and Altrusa. One possible new initiative to explore with the orphanages we currently support is to seek better ways to support older children currently residing in orphanages who participated in FCCOA sponsored programs and will be approaching emancipation in a few years. Perhaps we can help these children who are motivated to seek higher education or training to develop a career but do not have the means.

Parent Workshops: FCCNY Board member, Amanda Baden, suggested that the Board consider sponsoring more parent educational programs. Adoptive parents often seek professional advice and resources from Dr. Baden, beyond what she as one professional can individually provide. Areas of parental concern often raised include resources for children with language and other learning disabilities, how to talk with children about adoption in developmentally appropriate ways and how to prepare for the adoption of an older child or child with special needs. Also older adoptees might benefit from participating in forums where they can connect with others and talk about their experiences. While FCCNY has a list of resources for adopted children with special needs, parents would also like informational forums.

Most parents attending the APC annual adoption conference are pre-adoption parents, two thirds of which are in the early stages of considering adoption. Many adoption lawyers and agencies attend this conference.

The FCCNY Board does not want to duplicate efforts already successfully provided by other organizations. However, we recognize our members who are mostly post-adoption parents do seek more resources and forums. In the Spring 2008, FCCNY will consider conducting a Surveymonkey survey of its members to see what topics are most relevant for its parent members raising children who were adopted.

Deferred business: Mei Magazine’s request, 2008 Board meeting dates

Meeting adjourned at 8:55pm