 We're here, we're on. Did you notice that? You know, sometimes it just comes on you and you find all of a sudden you're on the air. And that's what we have here. We have the 12 o'clock rock. All right, let's do this. So, oh, how united we stand. We are standing, well, conceptually. And we're standing with you, Hawaii International Child. Yes. And you're Abby Sylvester. I am. And this is your daughter, Essence Sylvester. Thank you guys. Thanks for having us. What are you going to say? Oh, I said that's me. I want you to speak freely. That's me. All right. That's my name. Hawaii International Child. I'm going to get some guesswork here. It's a non-profit. It is. It's an Hawaii non-profit. Yep. But it ranges international. Yes. So we have programs that we do adoptions from international places. China and the Philippines are programs where we also work with a lot of families who are adopting from other places internationally. How old are you? I don't mean you. How old? But the organization. Oh, geez. They're over, I think they're 30 years old, at least. Wow. What's your role there? I'm the director of social work. Oh, okay. I never met a social worker I didn't like. Oh, good. This could be a good career choice for you, Essence. Oh, no. Go for more money. Money doesn't matter, right? You're right. No, it's a very happy career. It's a very happy career. So, and now you know a lot about this because you've been through the process of adoption. Yes. And you know because, you know, you're watching your mom do her thing every day. Every day. So, you can speak equally to the complexities of international adoption. Yes. Yeah, we speak more than I can about it. Okay. All right. Well, first thing is you took a degree in social work and then somewhere along the line you decided at international adoptions was your cup of tea. Yeah, I worked for Child Welfare Services after I graduated with my master's. I did sex abuse investigation and then I did some adoption work for them. Then I worked for another non-profit and did the stay at home mom, foster mom thing for a while and now I'm at Hawaii International Child. Are you the executive director of it? Oh, no. No. No. Our executive director is Christine Altwies. Okay. Wonderful. I'm just the director of social work. Okay. So, I want to talk about international adoptions for a minute. Okay. It was very popular in, I guess, the 60s and the 70s when, oh, I don't know, the world was waking up to the possibility and people who didn't have kids wanted to do international adoptions and they did and they were able to do it. Right. Fast forward, it became more difficult. Right. Certain countries, I mean, China comes to mind but Russia also comes to mind. Right. You know, so we don't like this so much. We think you're stealing our human resources or something and we don't like the way you're treating these kids which is, I don't think that was true. And we're going to slow you down. And so it became more difficult. Where is it now? So, right now, you're right, it has declined a little bit although there are still people all over the country who are adopting our programs that we use here in Hawaii from China and the Philippines. Our China program is a China waiting child which means the children are between the ages of 2 to 14 and most of them have mild to moderate special needs. What's a special need? So, for instance, maybe they are missing a limb or having some cognitive disabilities or delays, maybe have some cerebral palsy, all sorts of whole spectrum. Why is it that way? I mean, is it because people love a child with a disability more? Is it because it's hard to adopt a child without a disability? What is the set of circumstances that makes this happen? So, I think in the 80s and 90s, the thing from China was to adopt a little baby girl from China. That so much doesn't exist anymore. It is. What China is needing is homes for children who do have the special needs. So, that's what our program is. I see. So, that's what's possible. It's the way it works. And how much trouble is it these days? I remember people who really went through the ringer to effectuate adoption, you know, multiple trips, cost a lot of money, pay cash, you know, tens of thousands of dollars, and you really wondered why because you were actually doing good work for the common good of humanity. But hey, you know, they needed the money, so you paid them the money. Is it still like that? Well, I think adoptive parents do have to go to more work than many biological parents do to have a child. Interesting. You know, they do. You have to go through a home study. You have to get all your documents verified by the government here in China. You do have to fly to China to go pick up your child. How many times? Just once. Yeah, just once. Well, you know, it's just funny. I mean, all this home study investigation and prove up that you're a nice human being and all this, is it really necessary? I mean, are there people out there who would use this adoption process as for some dastardly reason, or is this just make-work kind of, what do you call it, bureaucracy? Well, we want to make sure that the children that we bring home to families here are put into the best families and that these families know how to meet their needs. So the home study is not just a background check, but we also educate the families about the adoption process. So two-way street. And how adoptive parenting is different than parenting a biological child. Okay, so you initiate the paperwork here. Are you serving only adoptive parents in Hawaii or all over the country or the world? So for our China and Philippines program, we have clients here in Hawaii, but we also have clients in the mainland that are working to adopt from our programs. Oh, really? So you don't make a distinction? It's okay. Right. You'll take a client from the mainland? Our domestic program, our Kamakana program, it's our domestic infant adoption program. It's placing babies that are born in Hawaii with families that are from Hawaii, and we just work with birth families in Hawaii. That's really interesting. I mean, are there kids to adopt here in Hawaii? Because, you know, Hawaii has a culture point of, you know, the Ohana and extended family will find somebody, you know, a cousin's uncle person. He will take care of the child. And so I think our state is different than the Ohana connections where a lot of birth families are lucky where they can place their child with extended, you know, aunties, uncles, grandparents, cousins. However, so to answer your question, there are a lot of children in Hawaii that need to be adopted. We have a program where it's infants that are being adopted into local families. But then we're also trying to partner up here with Child Welfare Services and find kids who are in foster care and need forever homes. We're trying to put those kids with our families. Out of foster care because everybody knows that foster care is not nearly as good as in a real adoption. Everybody needs a forever home. Yeah, everybody needs a family. Well, let's take a break from Abigail for a minute and talk to her. You know, I want you to participate in the conversation. So you have been adopted. Abigail, Abby, adopted you? Yes, with my husband, yeah. Okay, family adoption. And where were you at the time? How did you get into the system? What was the experience like? I know you can tell me and I am dying to know how it worked. So I was living with my birth mom. She was just raising me and my two siblings. She was a single mother. This was here? No, this was on the Big Island. I was on the Big Island at first. And then she moved here because she thought she'd have more benefits. You know, it'd be easier to get us back if she got more benefits and stuff like that. So she came down here and she didn't really know anyone and we didn't know anyone but we went into a domestic violence shelter because her boyfriend had abused her before. So we lived there for a short amount of time. Did you like it? Not really. She wasn't able to take care of us on her own. That's why she had to go. We didn't have anywhere to live. We didn't have that much money. We didn't have anything. So eventually we got put into foster care because she wasn't able to take care of us. The shelter noticed that and they kind of contacted the services. What did you think of foster care? At first, I think I was really, really afraid. I got in foster care when I was 11. I was really, really afraid. I didn't know anything about it. It was only something that I saw in movies. I didn't know anyone who ever put in foster care or anything like that. I knew I had to protect my sisters. That's just kind of all I knew. I didn't know anything about it, like, at all. Were you together with them? Yeah, we got placed together at first. That's a lucky break, isn't it? Yeah. Okay, so how long did you spend in foster care? You've been in nine months before you came to our house. Yeah. And then we had them for about a year and a half before we could finalize the adoption. Okay, so at one day, Abigail Sylvester appeared on your doorstep. What was that like? I think it was the other way around. Yeah, I feel in her doorstep, actually. Okay. I had bounced around between, like, seven or eight homes and then we finally met Abigail. And she was just a nice woman. You know, she really cared about, like, not all foster parents actually care about their youth. Like, the international child always tries to place them with people who care, but there's not always those people. And everyone's always been not that lucky. So I was really lucky to have Abby. Yeah. So, I mean, what was it like? I mean, you welcomed that. You welcomed Abby. You welcomed the adoption. It was going to be way better than foster care. Yeah, definitely. You knew that, even at the time. But I think it's fair. It wasn't an easy decision to get on, you know, board with adoption. There's always hope that your birth parents are going to be able to get their stuff together so you can go back to birth family. Yeah. How do you feel about that now? It doesn't hurt me as much. I used to just be really sad because I thought, shoot, I always thought my mother would come back, you know. I mean, she was definitely trying, but sometimes it doesn't work out that way. Do you ever go try to look for her? No. We talked to her sometimes over the phone. Okay. So how old are you now? 14. Wow. And how old are you when you met Abigail? 12. I think it was two years ago. Yeah, she turns 11 and turns 12, right? About three months later when she came in. So what's it like to be adopted? I mean, what's it like? Is it a wonderful experience? Is it a challenging experience? What work do you have to do to be an adopted child? I don't think it's much work. It's not like a burden, you know. If you want it, then it's amazing, and then it's beautiful and you're happy, and you can welcome it. But then if you don't, then it's not. But I always wanted to be adopted. It was probably hard though coming to, for any kid, when you come to a new home and learn about that, you know, every home has its own culture and its own rules and schedule, routine. It's definitely a change. Yeah, and here we are, people she hadn't met, and all of a sudden I'm trying to tell her what to do and my husband too, you know, and trying to find that balance of bonding and also disciplining your child. I think it is definitely harder, I think, for the kids coming in than for adults. The children and the families. That time we didn't have that with you, but yes. Right, right, right. How's it like being in a family of nine kids? It's definitely pretty crazy. Really? Is everybody talking at the same time? The rules at the same time and all that? Yes, we have family dinners. It's very important. It is, it's very important to have family dinner. But it's chaos, I mean it's chaos, family dinner. Chaos is good. I never met a family that didn't have chaos that enjoyed the chaos, you know. It's when you come to dinner sometime and witness the chaos yourself. There was a documentary on, a week ago, on PBS about JFK. And, you know, he had a tough time running for office in the beginning. It wasn't a walk, you know, a walk in the park for him. But he had been in a family with lots of kids. That was the nature of their Catholic family. And they argued about everything at the dinner table. I mean, I say argued, I mean had intellectual discussions about all the issues in the world. And he learned to speak, he learned to defend his position. He learned to engage with people. You know, a family dinner table is an invaluable experience. Defend your food. Now we have five under the age of six. So you can imagine that makes dinner a little bit more less intellectual perhaps. Does she ever wonder why Abby does this? Why nine kids? I mean not everybody outside on Bishop Street does this. I think it's just out of the kindness of her heart. I don't think, I know it's out of the kindness of her heart. It's just how she is, she's just the type of person. Yeah. Why do you do it? Well, I'm very blessed to have a husband who's also a social worker. And I think both of us just really feel this cheesy and corny that sounds called to do it. It's something we feel we can do. We love children that are not biologically ours equally as our biological children. And really I think we get the blessings being the parents. I mean we learn so much. I mean I think we get so much more than what we give. It's a great blessing to have a child. It is. To be in an interdependency with a child. It doesn't mean it's not hard. I mean there are days where you pray you can just go to bed really quickly and start over the next morning. But it is so rewarding and just to see how far so many of our kids have come. Building the trust, knowing that not all adults are out there to get them. Yeah. It's been great. Wow. Building trust. Yeah. Another world view. Are you going to go to college? Thank you. Definitely. There's no option. Don't tell me you're going to study social work. I'm still deciding. I don't know. Tell them what you like to do. Tell them what your passion is. I'm really passionate about sign language. That's probably odd. But I don't know. I'm really in love with it. I just love the language. I love the culture of the deaf. So that's something I like. That's interesting. More work for the common good for the humanitarian. So back to international child. Okay. You know we're in the 21st century. It's a nuclear age. The family as a unit is under stress in the 21st century. Of course in the U.S. But elsewhere also. And this is a way to take care of children. I forget. There was a word they used in Miss Saigon. It was something like he, he, he, he, Hossoi. Hossoi was the word. The dust of life. Children who have, nobody cares for them. And that happened in Vietnam because of the GIs. And then, you know, people in Vietnam back during the war. And that's why it was in the play. But what does it mean to have a system to adopt children from all over the world? What does it mean in terms of their lives? What does it mean in terms of the countries involved, the cultures involved? What does it mean in terms of the macro here in the U.S. that we have kids who are adopted, brought into the culture, raised in the system, in our system for whatever it's good or bad? That's a lot of questions there. I think, first of all, there's not just one system of adoption. Each country, sometimes each state, each county has its own different system for adoption. But I think you point out one thing that we teach our families is you need to recognize that this is, you know, what the adoption means and how does this affect the child coming in? How can you be sensitive to that needs? How can you, if the child has a different cultural background or ethnicity than you, how can you... How can you freeze that? Yeah, how can you support that? I had to learn how to do hair, you know? Like, what is... My hair skin care is a lot different than mine. And so we work with adoptive parents to know that you need to recognize these differences. You can't just bring a child into your life, you know, put your little box up and say, okay, we're moving on, we're good and be done with it. Well, that's the thing about social work and decent people all over the place. They relate to others individually. Everyone is different. You treat that person differently in accordance with who that person is. Instead of trying to profile them and put them in a box, as you say. Right, right. And I think that's really important in life in general. The best people I know are the ones who talk to me. Not some image of me, but really me. They think you are, yeah. Same everywhere, I think. It just teaches you a lot, doesn't it? Definitely. I lend every day. Yeah, fabulous what you're doing. Thank you. Thank you. Are you doing this before you got an international child with the adoptions or did international child spur you to do the adoptions? Oh, actually, I had already, all the children were placed, actually, I mean, I'm looking, thinking back. We had seven children in our home when I started working for Hawaii International Child. So all my children are adopted from foster care. And so they were not adopted through our program. But I had the knowledge about adoption to take to my work to Hawaii International Child. Okay, Essence, you know, we're at that point in the show where we take a one-minute break. And I'd like you to act like a host here and face camera one over there and tell the people that we're going to take a one-minute break. I'm grooming you. Okay. Go ahead. Don't say the people. Whatever. Just talk to them. We're going to take a one-minute break. Excellent. Hi, my name is Aaron Wills. You are watching ThinkTechHawaii.com. I am the host of the show, Rehabilitation, coming soon. You can watch us live at ThinkTechHawaii.com at 11 a.m. on Tuesdays. I will see you there. Hello, I'm Mary Ann Sasaki. Welcome to ThinkTech Hawaii, where some of the most interesting conversations in Honolulu go on. I have a show on Wednesdays from one to two called Life in the Law, where we discuss legal issues, politics, governmental topics, and a whole host of issues. I hope you'll join me. Aloha. It's summertime in Honolulu, Hawaii. My name is Steven Phillip Katz. I'm your host for Shrink Wrap Hawaii. We're on every Tuesday at 3 o'clock, and we talk about mental health and general health. Join us. Thank you. Aloha, everyone. I'm Mary Amera, and I'm here to invite you to my bilingual show, Viva Hawaii on ThinkTech Hawaii, every other Monday at 3 p.m. We are here to talk about news, issues, and events local and around the world. Join me. Aloha. Go. This is Aloha United. We stand, and I am here with my mom talking about adoption and foster care. Hello. That's great, huh? And Abby Sylvester. Hi. You guys are great. So make me an adoptive father, okay? Make you an adoptive father. My wife and I decide that we want to adopt a child. Okay. And I like to know the gauntlet we have to run and the process we have to go through in order to achieve that. Okay. I come to you. I say, good morning, Abby. Hi, good morning. My wife and me, we'd like to adopt a child. What happens now? That's excellent. So what we're going to do is we're going to sit you down, and we're going to talk about what are your ideas, your preconceptions about adoption. Are you open to adopting a child that's older, or do you have your heart set on an infant adoption? What type of child are you open to? Do you want to adopt here from Hawaii because it's important to you to have a local baby where you can keep in touch with local birth family? Or is it important to you to adopt a child from China because I'm making this up. I don't know anything about you, but perhaps your wife has Chinese, is from China, or has Chinese ethnicity and you'd like to be able to have a baby from there or a child from there. Actually, let me throw you a ringer. Okay. She's Japanese. She's Japanese. Okay. No, but we do work with people who are adopting from Japan with other agencies. Okay. So we're going to talk to you first. We're going to have to figure out whether you're interested in a domestic or an international adoption and then what you're open to, whether you're open to adopting an infant or whether you're open to adopting an older child. Then we have to look at what those programs, what their rules are because some programs have different rules regarding age, regarding money that you make, regarding just what your preferences are, whether you're single, whether you're single parent, whether you're heterosexual, homosexual. So we have to see what program fits best for you and what you fit best for the program. And I'm hoping you'll say, you know, Abby, I have a heart to adopt an older child. And I'll say, that's awesome. Why? People don't like to do that. People always do. People, I think people, they want to have, they have this idea that it's easier to adopt an infant and to bring them all in and then they can make mold the infant as their own and they don't have to deal with these issues or troubles that sometimes older kids can bring in. But I would want to tell you that every child needs a forever home. Can I just stop you for a minute there? Yes. That has always fascinated me, you know? I mean, because everybody thinks, you know, maybe adoption. And the question is whether you can achieve the same kind of interdependent bond with an older child. So here, I have between you two guys, I have my answer. Can you? Can you love your adoptive mother as much and father as if you were grown up with them since the age of six months or a year or two years, can you? You can. You definitely can. I can. I can tell you that, because we have right now a two-year-old all the way up to age 24. And I can tell you that I love my 24-year-old, my 14-year-old equally as much as my two-year-old or my four-year-old that we had since infants. The Vaans, it takes a little bit more work sometimes because in Essence's case, she'd had about eight homes before she came to us in my 24-year-olds. She'd had 34 homes. 34. So trust is, you know, broken at that point. People, adults, part of my language have screwed you over and you need to know that you really are testing. Was this adult just another person who's going to not be there for me? Well, you're a speechless. You're a standoffish. I'm not. No, I mean a child. It's not an easy thing. Every time you go into a home, not every time, but most of the time you went into a home, you're not treated kindly. You're not going to expect people to treat you perfectly. It's hard to just go back to that mentality. The funny thing, though, is if you've been exposed to a lot of homes, you get to know human nature pretty well. You get to know when guys are serious or not serious, whether they mean it or they don't mean it, whether they're sincere and good-hearted or maybe not so much, right? So you get to know the human condition. Yeah. Yeah. And you also get to know who you like. What type of people are you? Yeah. So it takes some trust-building, you know, and it takes a little bit more patience and understanding that if my daughters don't trust that I'm going to follow through the first reaction, oh, I'm frustrated, why didn't they trust that? But knowing, okay, wait, this is their background. They haven't always had people follow through. They're testing me a little bit. How can we show them unconditional love that no matter what you do, we love you? How do you do that? Patience. Everybody has trouble doing that. Yeah. How do you do that? You have to, I think, be educated first of all just to know that they have had trouble in the past with trusting adults. And so you need to understand that sometimes it's easier for them just to push adults away first before the adults push them away. Yeah. So what's it like for you? I mean, you're not going to be very trusting at the outset, been around the block too many times. But somebody presents, like your mom or your father, and they say, you can trust us. We'll take care of you. It's not just words. How do you let your... You can't just say it, you know, you can't just trust it because I'm pretty sure other people have said that to you and then they haven't. They went back on their word, you know? Yeah, yeah. So what makes you ultimately surrendered to it? I think with Abby and Adam, they're always constantly showing it. And they're never just giving up. I mean, there's never been a time when they've just given up, you know? Yeah, it's a constant battle. You have to keep going and keep going. But that's why I said ridiculous. It's work. Yeah, it's definitely work. It's inside work as well. Yeah. Okay, back to the mainstream then. Okay. Okay, so I have told you that I don't care. That it could be two years old. It could be 14 years old. Even 16 years old. Okay. I'm open, okay? Right. And I just want you to, you know, tell me and give me data about the family, give me data about where the child came from. And I do want to be sure of the child. Before you even get to this point, we're going to have to vet you. We're going to have to do your... Vet me, okay, vet me. Okay, so we're going to have to do your... Vet me, Abby, vet me. We're going to have to do your FBI and your child abuse and neglect clearances. Yeah. So any state that you've lived in since you were 18, we do both the child... So we're looking for... Yeah. We're making sure that you're not just some weirdo who wants to come adopt a kid and abuse them and that you have a... You're a safe person for this child. Yeah. Because these children at this point deserve the best and they deserve facing safe families. What are you worried about though? What's the worst case analysis that you're trying to vet out? That you're a child abuser or that you've committed some heinous crime. So we want to make sure that this child has the best home possible. My mental condition, I do not have mental disease. I have a good disposition. Right. I mean what I say. So to prove that, we'll have you request that you turn references in from friends and family co-workers. We request five references. These are personal references, people I know personally. My boss at work is not... That doesn't really quote. No, but we do require employment verification. That you have a steady income to afford in your child. Yeah. You want to know my assets? Yep, we'll ask for that. You want to be sure that I can take care of a child. You're right. And then once we have all this background document paperwork, which can take a little bit of time to get in. How much time? It depends on how fast you work. Some people are better at getting paperwork in and others... I'm stat. I'm stat. I give it to you immediately the same day. Have you lived anywhere else besides Hawaii? I might not have lived past 50 years. Okay. So Hawaii clearances usually take about a couple weeks for us to get in. So after we have all of our documents, we're going to sit down and we're going to have our first home study interview. And this is where I'm going to talk to you and your wife about your childhood. What type of childhood you had. How are you disciplined? How do you want to discipline your future children? Subjective. Talking to you. We have to establish for you that we're really nice people. You have to establish. You're telling me your history. You're telling me... You want to see a family culture that will open itself to a child. Right. I want to see what your ideas are about parenting. Then you were satisfied at some point. Are you satisfied with everybody or just some people? I mean, how many people do you reject anyway? Actually, you know, I have never had to reject anybody. Because the people who come to you are determined. And they are wonderful people. In the most part, everybody I've met who wants to adopt are amazing individuals. Okay. So once you are satisfied... Yeah. We meet two times total of about five to six hours to do a homestay interview. So pretty in-depth where I'm teaching you about adoption and what to expect when you're adopting a child. So once we have that pretty document that has all this glowing stuff about you, then you are approved to adopt. Okay. You're ready. We're about out of time. Okay. And time is the question now. Yes. How long does it take? And the time you feel that I'm a qualified adoptive parent till the time the child is in my house? It depends on the program. Again, with China, if it can be anywhere from nine months to a year and a half for a China program. Philippines, again, anywhere from nine months to two years. Our Kamakana program can be anywhere between six months and two years waiting for a birth parent to choose you. So it depends on the program? Yeah. Are you the only show in town where there are other adoption, international adoption issues? So we are the only ones I know of in Hawaii that do international. However, there is Wendy's Wonderful Kids with Family Programs, which works to help get kids adopted from the foster care system. I don't know. There might be some private attorneys that do adoption. And that breaks even my very last question is... I can't resist. Okay. There's got to be an attorney here because this is a legal adoption. Right. So how do you handle that? So we have... You recommend attorneys as well? We have attorneys that we recommend. We do. Some families prefer their own family attorneys. And that happens after the child arrives. Not before. Sometimes for the domestic, you'll be working with them before. How much of what your mom has to say do you agree with Essence? Pretty much all of it. Good answer. Essence says, Sylvester and Abby Sylvester, thank you so much for coming and sharing your family and professional interest. It's really wonderful to meet you and to talk to you and engage. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Come see us when you're ready to adopt an older child. Okay, alright. Come to dinner. Or come to dinner too. Okay.