FRUA National Board Blog

Seasons of Change

How swiftly the seasons move, one after the other, year after year. Even if we don't notice how quickly the years go by, our children surely remind us. As each school year starts, we send our wishes with our children as they head to the next grade, the new school, the challenging course they've never taken before. For many of us adoptive parents, these years have been, by turns, joyous and difficult at best, heartbreaking at worst, as we struggle to get our children the help they need.

In FRUA, INC, we say that our long-term goal as parents is to help our children to reach their potential, whatever that may be. But for some of our FRUA families, that can feel like too big a goal; for them the goal is a more limited, often focused on just getting their kids through the school week – or the day – in one piece!

Some years ago, during a particularly tumultuous middle school year, a psychologist who we'd contacted for help gave me a piece of advice. “Don't worry so much about the grades, or having a perfect child right now,” he said about our angry, defiant, brilliant, twice-exceptional son. “Your job is to raise a whole child. By the way, no child is perfect and neither are you.”

Well of course.

The words were blunt, but effective. And we made it through those years, one day at a time.

FRUA's new fiscal year brings emphasis on education resources and awareness

This isn't just the start of the school year for so many of us, it's also the start of our FRUA fiscal year. In July we met in Washington DC for our national board annual meeting, to map our plan of action for this coming year. It's fitting that our first quarter is the July-September time frame, as I've always felt it to be a time of new beginnings. And this year we have a lot in store for you.

We have a new compliment of board members, dedicated to this organization and our mission of providing hope help and community for adoptive families. For those who may not know, the entire leadership of FRUA is volunteer: your national board members, your regional chapter leaders, and your FRUA national committees volunteers and I appreciate every single one of them. I hope you do too.

As the year proceeds you'll be hearing more about our renewed emphasis on educational programming and resources. Leading our FRUA educational efforts will be Terry Mandeville, who is moving from the board position of Outreach to that of Education Chair. Stay tuned for news of the educational topics FRUA will be coordinating with programming partners, both with the FRUA Regional Chapters and directly to FRUA members.

If you haven't given in a while, please do consider a gift to FRUA. We need funds to help us in our work on educational and resource programming, to rebuild our FRUA scholarship fund, and replenish our orphan support fund. Remember, donations are tax deductible: frua.org/donate

Regarding our efforts at raising awareness of our FRUA mission and the success of our FRUA families....there is more news to come very soon, so stay tuned.

Jan Wondra

FRUA National Chair