Crisis within the borders exists for children
As immigration issues continue to dominate headlines, one of the questions being pondered is why some are in an uproar over immigrant family separations when the U.S. foster care system is in a state of crisis.
Trust me, there are plenty of opportunities for outrage
— and more importantly, opportunities to act — in both cases. There is no reason to minimize one crisis just because another exists, but that is the logic people use when they aren’t doing what they should.
I came across a report last week by Elizabeth Fender, marketing manager of the
Heritage Foundation, a con- servative public policy think tank, which said there are more than 400,000 children awaiting foster care in the U.S. and another 100,000 are in need of adoptive families
“Unfortunately, many of the faith-based adoption agencies that serve these children are under threat from lawsuits or have had their licenses and contracts halted because they do not place children with same-sex couples due to their religious belief that a child should have a married mother and father,” Fender said, summarizing the results of a recent study available on the organization’s website. “A majority of Americans believe we should ensure all adoption agencies can continue to serve children (58 percent) rather than forcing them to place children with gay or lesbian parents (42 percent). Nine in 10 agree the best way to help children in need is to maintain the diversity and number of agencies serving them.”
Some key observations of her report: 89 percent agreed the best way to help children was to utilize a range of adoptive families and agencies (including faithbased agencies); 9 in 10 agreed that adoptive and foster parents and birth mothers should be able to choose agencies that share their values and offer spiritual support; and, 58 percent indicated support for allowing adoption agencies to “continue to serve families over requiring religious agencies to place children with gay or lesbian parents.”
The latter, of course, is the polite way of saying that it should be OK to deny certain folks access to foster care and adoptions if the agency disagrees with the prospective parents’ lifestyle.
The American Civil Liberties Union has argued and is arguing that sexual orientation should not be a barrier to foster care and adoption placements. The Arkansas Supreme Court struck down a law in April 2011 which barred same-sex couples from adopting.
The Call is a Christian-based organization that helps foster and adoptive parents. The idea is to recruit Christian families to help with a critical need. And I applaud their efforts — and the efforts of ALL who have opened their homes and hearts to children in need.
According to The Call’s website (thecallinarkansas. org), there are 8,200 children in the state’s foster care system in a year’s time. The organization also observes that if one family from each church in Arkansas became a foster family, the crisis would be solved. Unfortunately, that’s not happening.
Here in Union County there are 180 churches, according to The Call, and 71 children in foster care each day due to abuse and neglect. On average, there are only 27 families to care for these children.
Group homes and treatment facilities fill in the gaps for children in the system, but they are in need of loving foster families. If you are looking for ways to support the culture of life, please consider opening your heart and home to a child — and if you can’t, please support the efforts of others who are busy doing this important work. There are too few willing to help to thwart the efforts of any who are.
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In last week’s column, I cited statistics on child hot car deaths and attributed credit to the wrong website. The data was found on http://noheatstroke.org/.
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Shea Wilson is the former managing editor of the El Dorado News-Times. Email her at melsheawilson@ gmail.com. Follow her on Twitter @sheawilson7.