An Ohio State Senator, and adoptive dad, Eric Kearney, has sponsored a bill making adoption easier in the state that was expected to pass yesterday afternoon.

Senate Bill 30 will establish a loan program offering $2,000 to $3,000 to adoptive families adopting an Ohio child. At the moment, there are approximately 2,800 waiting children in the state.

This follows Sen. Patricia Clancy's Bill 20 which tripled Ohio's income tax credit for adoption from $500 per child to $1,500.

Good for Ohio!

The Human Rights Commissioner of Kazakhstan, in conjunction with Astana Television and something called "Freedom House, Inc." is holding public hearings under the theme, "Does Kazakhstan need international adoption?".

I'll be looking for more on this, and in the meantime can only hope that the parties involved have the welfare of Kazakh children at the heart of their agendas.

(For a look at what can happen when international adoption is removed from the table, see today's International Adoption Blog.)

And while we're looking at changes in adoption laws, a conference is on in Quebec.

The executive director of the Secrétariat à l’adoption internationale du Québec, Luce de Bellefeuille spoke on changes in programs and in laws.

More news out of India on problems in the adoption system there comes from from a meeting of the Central Adoption Resource Agency (CARA), which is acknowledging that issues do need addressing.

Suggestions from participants include agencies keeping track of the children ... duh! ... and making the legal process less time-consuming and cumbersome.

Well, that's interesting.

Don't know about others, but I would have thought a big part of CARA's mandate was to keep track of "children who have been orphaned or left by their parents".

Like so many countries, however, systems don't work necessarily like they're meant to, and what in theory looks very good, in practice actually might be far from. (Foster care in the US is a good example of this.)

While some people are working hard to do the best for the children, others are less than helpful, and in this case a lack of support from the police and the Health Department and delays in legal procedures are being blamed for many of the problems plaguing adoption.

In New Zealand, a Trust has been launched that aims to, "... provide women with an alternative for unplanned pregnancies by highlighting successes of open adoption."

International adoption in Andalucia is the topic of this report for anyone interested in information on the Spanish process in that province.

There's a new book out that sounds like a good addition to many libraries. "The Foal That Doesn't Have a Family" was written by an 11-year-old autistic girl in foster care.

She's right chuffed with herself, as she should be.