Finding family

When children in care hit 18, adoption becomes onerous. These new adults have to push hard to make it official with their 'forever' people

- JIM RANKIN

Sherry Smrczek knelt down on her knee with a proposal for Kayla, one of many foster children Smrczek and her husband Richard had taken in over the years, but who was now an adult. Would Kayla want to be formally adopted? Yes, she did, and with tears of joy and a hug, Kayla had found her “forever family.”

So began a convoluted court process in Ontario that takes plenty of time, patience and legal know-how. As a consequence, young people who age out of the province’s child protection system, if unsupported and without a “forever family,” can end up facing homelessness, poverty and trouble with the criminal justice system.

It worked out for Kayla, at least. After more than a year of forms and more forms — at least nine forms and documents in total the are required in Ontario — her adoption was approved.

Despite a process Sherry Smrczek describes as “broken” and “annoying, we got the paperwork, she’s ours,” she said in a recent video interview from her home near Cornwall, with Kayla, now 23, beside her. Kayla’s new legal mother joked, “We can’t get rid of her!”

Even though adult adoptions involve consenting adults, the  legal means of adoption focus on child adoptions that can involve contentious and adversarial circumstances including the severing of parental rights, all of which merit the full attention of the legal system.

A working group of advocates, including lawyers, children’s aid workers and parents including Sherry, is pushing to make adult adoptions in Ontario an easier process. Think of it as more of a marriage.