Yesss! Confirmed! We saw it announced.
ACT checked at the base. For those wondering who organised the yearlong „leaks“ of JCICS documents, we admit: it was ACT.
ACT regularly checked the JCICS website, and sloppy as they were, they often left their archive doors wide open. For example, here their mailings to members.
Read it for yourself Source :
- From: Jennifer Mellon <[email protected]>
- To: „[email protected]“ <[email protected]>, „[email protected]“ <[email protected]>, „[email protected]“ <[email protected]>, „[email protected]“ <[email protected]>
- Cc: Brian Franklin <[email protected]>, Marie Blum <mari[email protected]>, Jennifer Mellon <[email protected]>
- Subject: [ahpsp-c] Message from Joint Council’s Chair of the Board
- Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 12:49:49 -0500
- Accept-language: en-US
- Acceptlanguage: en-US
Dear Friends,
On behalf of the Board of Directors of the Joint Council on International Children’s Services, it is with great sadness that we inform you that our organization must cease its operations effective June 30, 2015.
Joint Council’s 40-year history has been storied. A small group of organizations came together in 1975 to share information, elevate practices and collaborate on projects serving children in the U.S. and abroad. From those beginnings, we grew into an international organization with an outstanding reputation helping thousands upon thousands of orphans and vulnerable children. We are extremely proud of Joint Council’s accomplishments and take great pride in the difference our organization made in the lives of so many children and their families.
These accomplishments were only possible because of the company that we kept. The Joint Council community is a family unto itself. We would like to thank all current and previous staff, board members, partners, donors and supporters for their dedication to our common cause. We especially want to thank our current staff – Jennifer, Marie and Brandy – who have worked tirelessly under extremely stressful circumstances, and to the end, with extreme passion and dedication.
This was a difficult and painful decision to make, and we would like you to know that the Board acted reluctantly. As an organization, we have been subject to the same trends that have impacted many of our partners over the last decade. While we have been on the brink before, each time we were able to recover, but with diminished capacity. At this point in time, we are simply out of money and realize that we no longer have the prospect of continuing as a viable organization.
I hope that all of you will continue your tireless efforts to address the unmet needs of vulnerable children and continue the legacy of Joint Council by working to end the suffering of children who live every day without the safety and love of a strong permanent family.
On a personal note, as an adoptive parent who benefited from the work of Joint Council, I will forever be grateful for the group’s leadership that helped make our adoption possible.
Please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have.
Thank you for all of the support you have shown to Joint Council,
Brian Franklin
Board Chair
End 2009, just days after it came out, Poundpuplegacy – ACT’s partner in Transparency – published the Stakeholder Initiative of the JCICS. It gave a much welcomed insight in the dramatic situation in which JCICS had found itself. Suffering from a bad reputation as the Adoption Trade Industry, which they compared to the Tobacco Industry, they were in dire need to change their reputation. From ACT’s Adoption Lobby Alert
Even the help of the world largest PR company – Edelman – could not save them.
So, JCICS is down.
It will make ACT’s work slightly easier, as the JCICS (and/or its members) had its tentacles spread out in Brussels too. For example, astroturf SOS for the Children co-organised a special hearing in the European Parliament in 2006. Subject: Romanian adoptions. ALso there was the adoption lobby conference organised on 9 November 2006 at the European Parliament. For this event several US agencies provided support for the initiation of this discussion. Read their harrowing reporting HERE.
Ah, yes, not to be forgotten, acccording to JCICS‘ Board Meeting Minutes, the US had its own people in the European Parliament. Read it all here, no rumours, no gossip, but right from the source.
CALL FOR ACTION:
For those of the Adoption Trade Industry that still operate, ACT calls for strict transparency and lobby rules, comparable to those that exist for the Tobacco Industry.
Stay tuned. More coming.
