According to the State Department of Family and Protective Services, more than 13 hundred children in Harris County were waiting to be adopted last year. Many such children will likely come to a point in their lives when they consider searching for their birth parents.
Some adoptees simply want to learn more about their medical history; others are simply curious to know more about where they come from. The process isn't without its challenges.
On this edition of Houston Matters, we discuss the inherent challenges, and resources available here in Houston to help reunite adoptees with their birth parents. We talk with Analisa Warren, Public Relations Manager at DePelchin Children's Center.
Then, we explore the legal ramifications of an adoptee seeking a birth parent who doesn't want to be found. What happens when one's desire for privacy comes in contact with another's desire to know? We ask Maisie Barringer, a Family Law Attorney and Partner at Jenkins & Kamin, LLP.
Also this hour: from expansion of free lunch programs in HISD schools, to inaction and delays over a vehicle-for-hire ordinance and the future of the Astrodome, to a Kickstarter campaign to get strangers to pay for a Houston woman to eat every breakfast taco in town, we explore The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in Houston news with our rotating "non-expert" panel. We talk with Houston Chronicle columnist Lisa Falkenberg, ComedySportz Houston General Manager Dianah Dulany, and Fred Goodall, author of the parenting blog MochaDad.com.
Plus: Composer and lyricist Stephen Schwartz has been a major presence in American musical theater and film for more than 40 years. He's written famous songs for shows ranging from Godspell to Pippin to Wicked. He's also an three time Oscar and Grammy winner, and Friday night, he's attending a revue here in Houston of his best-loved works. The folks behind Defy Gravity: A Stephen Schwartz Songbook at Obsidian Art Space in the Heights will talk with Houston Public Media's St. John Flynn about their show, and Schwartz's music.
