Adagio Health and the home study for the first adoption of Masha Allen

December 31, 2009 the litigation team in Masha Allen's case against the agencies involved in her adoption by Matthew Mancuso, filed a Motion for Leave to File Amended Complaint. This motion for the first time makes direct allegations against Adagio Health, a health care provider in Pennsylvania, which also performs adoption services. Currently

, which at the time of Masha's adoption went under the name 

, cooperates mainly with the Gladney Center for Adoption.

In 1997, Nancy Simpronio, a social worker for the

of the

, performed the home study of Matthew Mancuso, in which he was approved for adoption. The home study says about Mancuso:

He is a caring, loving man who misses the parenting role he had with his daughter, He is a highly moral individual and will provide not just a financially stable home but the ability to parent a child with values, He is committed to having a family and is willing to make the necessary adjustments to his home and to his lifestyle to insure that the best interest of a child are paramount.

Ms Simpronio seems to regret having ever written these words, but at the same time it fits very well with the near automatic assumption prospective adopters are by definition loving parents.

View some of our approved adoptive families who are anxiously waiting for their chance to be warm, loving parents.
Advocates for Children and Families website

New Beginnings was established in 1985 and since that time has united over 2,000 children with loving parents.
New Beginnings website

He or she will have loving parents who have made the conscious decision they want a child and have the financial stability and loving home needed to properly care for a child.
Adoption advisory, Inc. website

Since 1899, we’ve placed more than 10,000 children with loving parents
Children’s Aid and Family Services ad

Early in 2001, our 50th child was placed with loving parents, and our first website birth mother had completed her adoption plan.
Adoption assistance website

Dina has seen so many happy families who found their children and so many orphans who finally have a home and loving parents.
Adoption Ark website

On Monday, the non-profit agency, Forever Families Through Adoption, delivered its first baby, a girl, to two loving parents from New York City.
Forever families through adoption website

Since 1979, Sunny Ridge has placed over 3,000 children in the arms of loving parents through our adoption programs.
Sunny Ridge Family Center website

HIC has been placing children with loving parents since 1975.
Hawaii International Child website

China adoption was opened to the international adoption process in the early 1990’s and by 2004, placed about 7,000 children with loving parents.
International Adoption Stories.com

here are people who oppose international adoption, who think it's better for a child to be in a desperate situation and an institution in their own country than to be adopted by loving parents.
Thomas Atwood

The families below are eligible to adopt a baby from any state. They are all pre-screened and are ready to be loving parents to your child.
Virginia Adoption website

More than 114,000 foster children need adoptive families. Your donation helps find loving parents for these children, support adoptive families, and raise adoption awareness.
CVC Charity profile

Wouldn't it be better for this baby to have two loving parents who desperately wanted it and would have the financial resources to take care of it?
Physicians for Life website

Your baby will have a wonderful home with loving parents no matter which of these adoptive families you choose.
The Adoption Law Practice of Robert B. Kirsh

The case of Masha Allen shows the disasters that can happen when prospective adopters are assumed to be loving parents, merely by filling out an adoption application. Yet this seems to have been the mind set in the Mancuso home study, and given more than 400 documented post-placement abuse cases, this is likely not to be an exception.

The Mancuso home study shows remarkable detail (despite the fact it is only six pages long) for trivia. For example it states that Matthew Mancuso was an accomplished accordion player at a young child due to his grandfather's influenced, that he played organ, trumpet, guitar and drums as a teenager. The home study further tells us that Mancuso's first car was a used 1969 Firebird, and that after high school he planned to attend college and become a chiropractor. It also tells us his mother was a registered nurse and his father owned and operated an Italian bread business and that family vacations were important and fun events for the young Mancuso.

Despite such detail for the unimportant, the Mancuso home study lacks in detail about the suitability of Matthew Mancuso as an adoptive parent, and in no way shows the proclaimed thoroughness of the home study process. It fails to mention there was no room prepared for a child, it fails to investigate the reasons for the alienation between Mancuso and his biological daughter. On top of that it contains a big red flag, the statement Mancuso would like to adopt a girl between the age of five and six of the Caucasian race.

Of course for those who automatically consider prospective adopters to be loving parents, such a detail doesn't raise any warnings. It requires a skeptical mindset when doing home studies to pick up on such signals. Such a skeptical mindset was completely absent in the home study of Matthew Mancuso, and this case is in that sense far from exceptional. Given the cozy relations between home study providers and placement agencies, it shouldn't be surprising every year thousands of home studies, like the one done on behalf of Matthew Mancuso, are being performed.

When the litigation team of Masha Allen v FTIA et. al. filed their initial complaint, Adagio Health was conspicuously absent from the list of defendants, even though the complaint does mention their involvement, albeit misspelled: 

A reasonable and objective review of the home study performed by Adiago reveals that not only had Mancuso not been in a stable and supportive relationship with another person, let alone a child, for years, the last personal relationship ended in divorce whereby he became estranged from his own biological daughter. Yet, this man was specifically seeking the adoption of a 5 year old girl under the auspices that he could provide a stable family relationship and family environment for her.

It wasn't until Families Thru International Adoption (FTIA) filed a third party complaint in January 2009, that Adagio Health became a party in the lawsuit. The initial omission of Adagio Health is especially strange in the light that it was the home study that made the adoption of Masha Allen possible in the first place. On top of that Adagio Health is the largest of all parties involved in the placement of Masha. If any party is able to settle for a considerable compensation, it is Adagio Health.

With the latest development in the case of Masha Allen v FTIA et. al., finally direct allegations are made to Adagio Health. Let's hope, for Masha's sake, this development works out in her best interest. After all that was done to Masha since her arrival in the United States, she deserves justice being done to her.