Summer Miracles put on hold by state adoption officials

By BETH SLOVIC Chronicle Staff Writer

The Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services has blocked the Bozeman-based Sacred Portion Children's Outreach from hosting its fourth annual Summer Miracles program.

The nonprofit organization encourages people to adopt older children from Russia, the Philippines and other parts of the world.

But the state has decided that Sacred Portion is playing enough of a role in placing the children that it should be licensed.

And that means the children they were to sponsor won't be able to come this summer.

Through Summer Miracles, 49 foreign orphans over the course of three years have visited the Bozeman area for four to six weeks, living with hosts who sometimes were interested in adopting.

Of those children, 40 were, in fact, adopted by their hosts or friends of their hosts.

But all of the adoptions were handled by licensed child placement agencies, Jan Druckenmiller, who runs Sacred Portion with her husband Craig Druckenmiller, said.

The Child and Family Services Division of the state health department has decided that Sacred Portion is involved in the children's placement and, therefore, requires state licensure, division officers told the Druckenmillers.

No representative of the division was available Friday to speak about the change.

Two groups of children from the Philippines and Russia were supposed to travel to Bozeman in July. But because getting the license may take several months, Sacred Portion has had to put Summer Miracles on hold.

All of the money the group raised to help bring the children to the area will be held in a reserve account for next year's program, Jan Druckenmiller said.

In the meantime, the state would also like Sacred Portion to require that hosts be licensed as foster parents, she said. This would require hours of training and a potentially expensive home study by a social worker, she said.

"That really makes the summer program unworkable." Jan Druckenmiller said. "How are we going to recruit families to host children for four weeks when they have to go through that process?"

It's this hurdle that worries Jan Druckenmiller the most. She is willing, she said, to take the steps to have Sacred Portion licensed, even though it has not, in the past, been responsible for the actual adoptions.

But the requirements for hosting may discourage some people from participating, she said.

"We're just trying to do a good thing to help older kids find families, and we've had this obstacle thrown in our path," she said.

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