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After one segment of the fashion show, I leave the sanctuary and head to a bedroom-sized space where the atmosphere feels like the backstage of a school play. More than a dozen children are sitting in chairs or milling about. A few adults hover nearby. It's here I meet Darius, clad in a striped Phat Farm shirt he bought with a gift card. This is the second year Darius has walked the carpet at Briar Creek Baptist Church, and he describes the experience as "traumatic."
"The first time, I was nervous," he says. "This year, I'm kind of skeptical." Last year, he came to the show hopeful. "A lady came up to me; she said she wanted to adopt me," he says quietly. "But a week later she called my house and said her husband said it wasn't the right time."
Adoption fashion shows aren't universally accepted. Some experts have criticized the practice, likening it to a picking an animal from the pound -- only the companion chosen is an emotionally fragile child who very likely has suffered harrowing neglect and abuse.
"It's hard for their expectations not to be dashed by something like this," says Lee Allen of the National Council for Adoption. He, like some other advocates Creative Loafing spoke with, had not heard of adoption fashion shows.
Ciceron emphasizes the positive side. The shows can help foster kids befriend children in similar straits and help them become more comfortable meeting potential parents. It can be a confidence-boosting moment, she says. Still, she knows some children are going to have hurt feelings and twisted nerves. "There are some things you can't avoid," she says. Children who have been in the show before probably wonder if this time might be different. "There's no way we can stop a child from wondering that," Ciceron acknowledges.
Some of the criticism comes from people who haven't seen the fashion shows, Ciceron points out. Those people don't understand that foster parents and social workers talk with the children beforehand about realistic expectations. No child, whether age 4 or 14, is forced to participate, she says. Still, Ciceron acknowledges that the appropriateness of the fashion shows has been debated even within the Department of Social Services. A few social workers have questioned whether displaying the children in the context of a fashion show feels too much like an auction.
"On the flipside of that, you have children waiting in custody and no innovative way to place them," says Ciceron, who has been an adoption recruiter for about five years.
Since the local event started in 1999, Ciceron says, prospective parents have inquired about half of the kids as a direct result of the shows. The agency doesn't track how many kids are actually adopted. CL was unable to find a study of the efficacy of such events, here or elsewhere. But Ciceron estimates between 30 and 40 percent of the kids involved in one year's fashion show will either be adopted or find permanent guardians by the following year. Sometimes the show encourages a child's foster parents to adopt. "If nothing else, it gets the ball rolling for the child," she says.
Some state adoption advocates agree that fashion shows and other unorthodox events seem to work. "I've only heard good come out of it," says Smith of NC Kids. It's possible to conduct a fashion show sensitively, she insists, if the children are adequately prepared.
Allen of the National Council for Adoption isn't sold. "It would be very easy for a child to feel like he was on showcase, like potential adoptive parents are looking at him," he says. "How in the world does he not feel that somehow he is inadequate if he's not picked?"
Back at the Church, 17-year-old Brittany is sitting next to Darius. She hadn't seemed nervous or scared earlier as she paraded through the church sanctuary in a lavender prom dress, but now she looks tense. Still, Brittany is eager to get out of the group home she's been living in for the past year. Besides, she has career aspirations to think of. "Well, I want to be a singer, so I've got to get used to it," she tells me as her knee taps nonstop. "I don't want anyone to get my hopes up."
Not all children are pessimistic or jaded by the adoption process. Sherika, a 13-year-old who overhears my conversations with Darius and Brittany, is quick to tell me that she's fine. "I'm ready to get adopted," she says resolutely. The audience will be told that Sherika's favorite class is P.E. and that she hopes to be a police officer.
Each passing day works against a child hoping for a new family. Many people looking to adopt want younger children. As a child ages, her adoption chances dwindle. Some children, like Brittany and Darius, wind up still searching for parents well into their teens.
For more information about adoption, call 704-336-KIDS (5437) or look on the Web at www.adoptuskids.org/states/nc/.
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