In 1990 the scandal of the orphanages in Romania hit the headlines and thousands of people rushed to Romania to adopt the children. Some 3,000 Romanian children have joined adoptive families in the USA. Over 90,000 remain in institutional care. This heartbreaking yet hopeful video provides a compelling insight into the Romanian orphans, some adopted by American families and the many who stayed behind.
The video shows the institutional background and follows the developmental journey of seven of the adopted children with severe problems and the implications for post adoption services. The journey shows courage, determination and despair for both the children and their adoptive families. Through lack of stimulation and nurturing, institutionalised children suffer delays in physical, cognitive and socio-emotional development which manifest themself in areas such as vision, hearing, language, motor skills and attention. Some manage to overcome difficulties through sheer determination or a rigorous daily regime of different therapies that somehow enable other areas in their brain to take over. Others are less fortunate. They remain unable to talk or attach to their adoptive parents and others.
The video also follows the adoption journey of an adoptive couple eager to meet their second child, uncertain about the conditions their new daughter experienced during her two-year stay in the orphanage and the impact this will have on her development, but optimistic about what the future will hold.
The adopted children from Romania are providing scientists with a unique opportunity to study the impact of institutionalisation on the developing brain systems. Dr. Harry Chigany, of the Children’s Hospital in Detroit, undertook neurodevelopmental research involving eight of the children. Electronic PET scans of their brains show low activity or even black holes instead of active areas for the interpretation of language, emotions and attention.
Despite the lesson learned over the past 6 years there are now more young children living in Romanian institutions than in 1990. Child Welfare and Adoption Laws dictate that the children must remain in state care for at least six months before becoming legally available for adoption. (Changed to 75 days since May 1997). Some 96% of the children remain in institutional care until adulthood. Doctors Without Borders, an international care organisation of high repute, has taken the extraordinary step of leaving Romania, despairing at the lack of genuine commitment by the Romanian system to help the children become de-institutionalised and to find families for them.