Holt International Children's Services

For 50 years, Holt has been finding families for the world's orphaned, abandoned and vulnerable children through family preservation, reunification or domestic and international adoption. Every child deserves a home.

Why do we exist?

Holt International finds families for children. We believe that it's God's plan for every child to have a permanent, loving family of his or her own because children have the best opportunity to develop when they are loved and belong in a family. We focus our programs on orphaned, abandoned and vulnerable children overseas.

At Holt we do what's best for the child. We're really much more than an adoption agency. In each country we develop and maintain partner agencies and programs that improve the care for children. Because it takes time to place children in the most appropriate permanent family, we provide professional, yet very attentive, care and medical treatment. Children don't develop well in institutions, and so we prefer to care for children through temporary foster families who provide an affectionate, nurturing, family environment where children can thrive.

While our emphasis is on doing what's best for the child, we're also committed to protecting the rights and best interests of birth families and adoptive parents. This is one reason that Holt serves children and families through these three priorities:

• Help children to remain with or be returned to birth families (family preservation).
• Help children to have families through in-country (or domestic) adoption
• Help children to have families through international adoption

The most important thing is that children have the opportunity to grow up in the most appropriate, permanent family where they will find belonging and support to achieve up to their potential. We currently help homeless and at-risk children in North and South Korea, China, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, India, Mongolia, Ecuador, Bulgaria, the Philippines, Guatemala, Haiti, Uganda, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and through six branch offices in the United States.

What have you accomplished?

Holt's work has gained the attention and respect of child welfare experts, government officials and policy makers worldwide. Holt has been requested by several countries to advise them in establishing adoption and child welfare policies. Holt's Ukraine program, Families for Children, has been instrumental in changing Ukraine's Soviet era child welfare system and helping local organizations build their capacity to de-institutionalize children and place them in family care.

Foster care programs for HIV-positive children in Romania, originated by Holt, are considered best practice models by UNICEF, USAID and the Romanian Government's National Authority for the Protection of the Child and Adoption.

In 2002, Holt International began exploring ways to serve children in Haiti, with Peter and Shay Fontana of the Hope for Haiti Foundation. Two years later, the Fontanas finished construction of the Holt Fontana Village near Montrouis (about an hour north of Port-au-Prince).

Lily came to the Holt Fontana Village when she was 3 months old. She was malnourished, underweight, covered with abscesses under both arms and acne all over her body. Lily cried day and night, but when she wasn't crying or sleeping, she drank lots of milk. Holt Fontana's pediatrician kept a close eye on her condition.

Her birth mother was unmarried, already had two other children and was without job, skills or education. She lived in an unstable relationship with Lily's birth father in a poor, depressed area. He, too, was without job, skills or education. Lily's birth mother decided she simply couldn't care for another child and that it was best to relinquish her for adoption.

Lily is now a healthy, happy child who interacts well with Holt Fontana staff. She plays and laughs with the other children at the village. Lily was quickly assigned an adoptive family, and hers is one of the first adoption cases to be initiated by Holt in Haiti.

On of our newest projects is a partnership with the government of China to develop a pilot program to provide support to keep children, who have lost one or both parents to AIDS, and/or whose parents are unable to care for them because of HIV/AIDS, within their extended family, typically, with grandparents. The following report is from our field staff in China:

'Aunty Qi!' a little girl dressed in a colorful jacket called to us as she came running up. Ms. Qi, from the County Office for Monitoring Epidemic Diseases, introduced us to Le Le who chatted happily as she guided us through the village to her aunt’s house. The home was typical for a country village: small, old, and very simple with wood shutters instead of glass windows, three rooms and a few pieces of furniture strewn about.

Le Le's mother contracted HIV in a medical facility at the time she gave birth to Le Le and her twin brother. Being very poor, the family sent Le Le away to be unofficially adopted. After her mother died of AIDS, Le Le was also diagnosed HIV-positive. Afraid to have Le Le in their home, the adoptive family sent her away to her aunt's home where she now lives. Because of the misinformation surrounding HIV, Le Le also had to drop out of school, a heavy disappointment for a smart and lovely child who loves to learn and sing.

As we prepared to leave, we asked Le Le to sing for us. Somehow amidst the hardship of her life, Le Le could still sing out with exuberance: The country is a big garden and we are all little flowers in that garden. The sun shines on all of us.

How much Le Le must long for a normal, happy childhood where she can be a flower that's blooming along with other children in school.

Holt is working in China to develop programs that create a better understanding of HIV/AIDS so that children can remain in school and families can have access to community resources. Holt also provides financial aid for children to attend school and help families access available medical treatment.

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