This article appeared in the Aug. 29, 2003 Jewish Advocate.

Adoption agency founder still helping kids, families

By Susie Davidson

Advocate Correspondent

“As a parent of two biological children, it was not initially my intention to adopt a child,” Newton resident Filis Casey said. “But watching children join their adoptive families and seeing pictures of children in need of families had a profound effect on me.”

Nine years after founding the Alliance for Children, the first international adoption agency based in Massachusetts, Casey and her family adopted a child in 1983. Casey now serves as executive director of both the Alliance for Children and the Alliance for Children Foundation, which she founded in 2000.

Funded by a gift from an adoptive family, the foundation provides basic health and medical needs to children less likely to be adopted due to age or special needs who live in impoverished orphanages in Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America. The organization also provides financial assistance to child care institutions for children awaiting placement, as well as lifelong training, support, information and referral services to both client families and the public. To date, the Alliance has placed more than 5,000 children from China, Vietnam, Russia, Ecuador, Colombia, Guatemala, and Ukraine.

“My husband (attorney Robert Casey), who had escorted a baby from Bogata, Colombia, was delighted with the idea of our own adoption,” Casey continued.

A Bogata orphanage sent a small black and white photo of their soon-to-be-daughter Marisa, who was 3. Their biological children, Sarah and Matthew, were 9 and 11 at the time.

“After working at the agency and helping lots of families, I had no idea how emotional it would be when my time came,” recalled Casey, who grew up as an only child of Conservative Jewish parents in Clifton, New Jersey. Her father, a dentist and son of Hungarian immigrants, was also an only child. Casey’s maternal grandfather was a rebbe and Talmudic scholar in Russia and New York.

Following a recent Russian government decision to allow children in orphanages to be adopted by families in the US and elsewhere, the Alliance is planning to place Russian Jewish children in Jewish homes.

“In the institutional setting, there is no opportunity for a child to learn of his or her Jewish heritage and practice the Jewish faith, or to be involved in Jewish causes,” Casey said. “We also believe that by transitioning such children from institutions to private families with traditional family values, they will be physically healthier and eventually able to, in turn, help others.”

The first Russian Jewish child available for adoption is a 7-year-old girl.

The Foundation is looking for new clothes and shoes for Russian Jewish children ages 1-4 and 7-14. “We will pay to ship the clothing to Russia,” Casey said.

Casey, who graduated from Suffolk University Law School and Boston University, frequently lectures on adoption issues for the Open Door Society Parent Organization and is an active member of the Adoption Roundtable, a discussion group of people who supervise international fundraising and relief efforts, as well as the Joint Council on International Children’s Services, the largest worldwide group of adoption professionals.

Jewish families who have adopted children through the Alliance include Larry Kessler and Lynne Cains of North Attleboro (two Chinese children), Jennifer Alpert of South Easton (one Ukrainian child), Rhonda Elkins of South Easton (one Russian child), and Bruce and Amy Botvin of Rhode Island (one Russian child).

“When I talk with adoptive families, so many of them say with pride, “’This child is just perfect for our family,’ or “This child makes our family feel complete,” Casey said. “We feel exactly the same.”

For information on the Alliance for Children, please contact Jaimie Adler at Bayleaf Communications at bayleafgcomm@rcn.com.

“A