Consider adopting an older child
Advocates for child welfare have just finished their annual observance of National Adoption Month, which takes place annually in November.
Thousands of teens and young adults in foster care need to find a loving family and a place to call home.
Yes, the official events are over, but the issues raised during National Adoption Month demand attention and reinforcement throughout the year. The reminder is particularly appropriate during this season of giving.
National Adoption Month, backed by the Children’s Bureau in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is intended to raise awareness about the urgent need for adoptive families for children and youth in foster care. Its history dates to 1976, when Adoption Week was declared in Massachusetts. The idea grew in popularity. In 1984, President Ronald Reagan proclaimed the first National Adoption Week, and in 1995, under President Bill Clinton, the observance was expanded to an entire month. The goal is to promote the adoption of children and youth from foster care into permanent, loving families.
This year the focus was on the need for thousands of teenagers and young adults in foster care to find a loving, permanent family and a place to call home.
According to the Children’s Bureau, such efforts are making a difference. The number of children and youth in foster care has been decreasing, but there were still 423,997 as of September 2019. At that time the number of children and youth waiting for adoption or other permanent homes was more than 122,000. Of those, 13,974, or 11%, were between the ages of 15 and 17. The average age of children waiting to be adopted is 8 years old.
“Securing permanent connections for these young people remains critically important and deserves our unwavering commitment,” Children’s Bureau Associate Commissioner Jerry Milner wrote in his message for National Adoption Month. “Nurturing parental relationships, within both birth and adoptive families, is essential for healthy physical and emotional development.”
Agencies providing adoption and foster care services in our region are reinforcing the message that there is a great need, and that individuals can make a tremendous difference.
It’s understandable that many prospective adoptive parents are looking forward to the experience of raising a child from a young age and may have some trepidation about taking on a tween or teenager and the challenges that go with guiding a child through adolescence. But people who work in the field say there have been many success stories involving families providing homes for older children.
“I could not pick just one family to highlight,” said Karen Knodel, manager of permanency services for Diakon Adoption and Foster Care in Topton. She did provide a poignant example: the story of a bachelor coach who had not planned to be an adoptive parent but stepped up when one of his players asked to be adopted.
The reality is that older children need help. They may often look like young adults ready to tackle the world on their own, but that’s not really the case, especially if they’ve had to deal with an unstable home situation.
Older youth and teens are at high risk of aging out of foster care without stable and permanent family support, yet studies have shown that having a close relationship with a caring adult is critical at every age, according to Jill Troutman, vice president of advancement, marketing and communication for the Children’s Home of Reading.
“It is heartbreaking to think that so many children don’t have that parental figure they can count on to be there for them,” Troutman said.
Parents who have taken on the challenge often find it richly rewarding. Knodel recalled several families who hoped to adopt a child under the age of 10 but had a change of heart after seeing an older youth on the Pennsylvania’s Adoption Exchange website.
Each of us has an opportunity to be a hero to someone just by being open to saying yes to a teenager. It’s well worth considering.