Businesses in Historic Old City Philadelphia Help Foster Children Looking to be Adopted

For years we have teamed up with KYW Newsradio to air a program called Wednesday’s Child, hosted by broadcast journalist Larry Kane. Larry, who has been a friend to NAC for more than 25 years, asks the children about themselves and why it is important to them to be adopted. These special interviews are featured on the radio every Wednesday, multiple times a day, with the goal of finding permanent loving homes for these children.

The children who now live in foster care, come to Philadelphia to be taped for the interview, many come from significant distances. NAC has been asking for donations from businesses in Old City Philadelphia, where KYW's studio is located, in an effort to make the day memorable for the children.

We met one of our most enthusiastic partners in this effort last month. Evan Sharps, owner of Old City T-Shirts , is a man who knows all about creating an experience to remember. When Evan heard about the different types of children we work with - the importance of finding them a family, and the joy it would bring to give them a day filled with fun memories, he was quick to hop on board.

Evan has graciously committed to offering every child involved in KYW Newsradio’s Wednesday’s Child program an opportunity to make a custom designed t-shirt in his souvenir shop. Evan’s charming shop is unlike any other. Customers get the chance to choose from a colorful selection of shirts, pick out their own design, and watch their t-shirt instantly come together.

We cannot thank business owners like Evan enough for helping us create a fun and exciting experience for the children who count on us to help find them families.

Spread the support and drop into Old City T-Shirts to see what the hype’s all about!

If you are interested in donating to the National Adoption Center’s Philly Fun Package, contact Beth at: bvogel@adopt.org

Art of Adoption

We will be celebrating NAC’s 40 years of service at its 2012 Celebration of Family: the Art of Adoption Gala on April 25th. One of the most anticipated features of the gala is the reveal and auctioning off of ten masterpieces, all inspired by adoption, but each one created by a different renowned Philadelphia artist. These artists range in their media anywhere from paintings, to prints, to sculptures, and even mosaics. All artists have had the opportunity to meet with adoptive families and their children, who are now out of foster care; an opportunity that has become essential to the inspiration of each work.

Some artists, like Perry Milou are pulling from other sources of influence too. This pop artist, who has been praised for his vibrancy, forward-thinking, and glamorous pop art, has had some personal experience with the world of adoption himself. Having known the hardships of growing up with a single parent, Milou was later fortunate enough to be adopted, thus thoroughly appreciating the stability and love of a forever family. He is thrilled to be a part of this celebration of adoption.

Perry Milou’s portrait of his daughter Francesca

Milou recently met up with the Thomas family to learn about their adoption story as inspiration for his upcoming piece. Jonathan, 14, Alaina, 17, and Isaiah, 18, were adopted together by Jane and John Thomas only a few years ago, and the family is thriving. . . but it wasn’t easy. The teens had to overcome many past traumas of their foster care lives, physically, mentally, and emotionally. But now, with the support and guidance of their forever family, the three are as close to their adoptive parents as any biological child would be. And they’re happy! Alaina is always ecstatic about reporting the daily happenings of school to her mom each day, while Jonathan and Isaiah enjoy the typical brotherly rough-housing, especially with a new addition to the family, their baby brother Jordan.

Seeing these siblings begin to dream about the potential of their futures, Perry Milou is also dreaming up a work of art that could possibly capture and celebrate the extraordinary success of adoption stories that happen each and every day.

The Thomas family 

To learn about NAC’s gala and all of the participating artists go to the Gala's online home.

Wednesday's Child Spotlight on Kareem!

Meet nine-year-old Kareem! This outgoing and friendly young man has a passion for staying active and learning new things. In his spare time he enjoys playing with monster trucks, watching SpongeBob, and playing outside. In the third grade, Kareem performs well academically and gets along well with his instructors and peers. He particularly enjoys math and gym classes. Kareem aspires to be a fireman.

Kareem recently got a peek into the Fire Department world as he met up with Wednesday’s Child host Vai Sikahema at the Philadelphia Fire Academy for a day of fun, learning, and adventure. The two met with Lt. Gilliam, who gave them a tour of the facility. They then headed to learn to ride a fire truck, a stimulator of course. Kareem also learned about many of the tools firemen use to do their job. They then suited up, and worked on a mission to save a baby from a building. Kareem felt like a superhero! As they headed out, Commissioner Lloyd Ayers met with Kareem and encouraged him to be his best. He shared some history about the Fire Department and listened as Kareem shared his goals about some day joining the team.

Kareem’s day at the Fire Academy was definitely a success! Vai later sat with Kareem to discuss what he is looking for in a family. Kareem longs for a family to call his own, one that will be his forever, and that will love and support him as he becomes a “grown-up.” He also hopes for a family with siblings to play with. A family that is caring, loving, and supportive will give Kareem a solid foundation for the future.

Outstanding Nonprofit of the Year for 2011

The National Adoption Center was just named the Outstanding Nonprofit of the Year for 2011 by the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce.  When I heard about the award, my mind shot back 38 years when the Adoption Center was just a dream.  We didn’t know then whether anyone would want to adopt a child with Down syndrome or cystic fibrosis or a family of four brothers who needed a home together. Happily, the dream became a reality and we have helped create families for more than 22,000 children in the country. Not one was a healthy baby. We’ve come a long way—from a wooden recipe box on someone’s kitchen table with sections for children, for potential families and for “matches”-- to the technology- based processes we now have to bring children and families together… and give them the personal service that can usher them through their adoption journey.  Our experience tells us that our vision and imagination must continue to propel us, that we must pursue our mission to demonstrate that “there are no unwanted children…just unfound parents.”  We count on everyone interested in the welfare of children to help us make a difference in the lives of the children who count on us.    

Adoption Mondays

The program team is exceptionally busy for the upcoming National Adoption month in November. Sheina Martinez, Crystal Allen, and Amy Cressman are coming to a Philadelphia lobby near you! These dedicated adoption coordinators decided that for National Adoption month they would create awareness about the needs of the children in foster care who are waiting for a forever family by setting up displays in the lobbies of some of the largest office buildings in Center City Philadelphia.

They will be available each Monday in November to answer your questions about adoption and provide adoption information to interested families. Look for them if you are in the Philadelphia area from 11a.m. to 2 p.m. in the following locations:

Monday, November 1, Comcast Center, 1701 JFK Boulevard

Monday, November 8, 1500 Walnut Street

Monday, November 15, 1500 Market Street

Monday, November 22, Liberty Place, 1625 Chestnut Street

Do stop by and say hello!!

Truancy & foster care

Last week, the Philadelphia Inquirer ran a story on the incidence of truancy amongst its public school population. According to the story, nearly 15,000 children (10% of total enrollment) are truant from school on any given day. It went on to note that up to one-third of these children were currently living in foster care. This is just one more reason to invest more resources into adoption. What do you think?

Academic Success

According to studies, almost 800,000 children in the United States spend time in foster care each year. These children may change foster homes once or twice a year. Often these moves mean also changing schools. Because of this, it can be hard for them to make significant educational progress. Frequently, they experience delays in enrolling in a new school or difficulties in transferring credits from one school to another. As a result, many foster children lag behind their classmates, lose hope and drop out of school.

To address this problem, in 2008 Congress enacted the Fostering Connections to Success Act—a child welfare law, which, among other things, aims to improve the school stability of foster children. On November 19, 2009 U.S. Senators Patty Murray (D-WA) and Al Franken (D-MN) introduced a bill providing additional resources:

Fostering Success in Education Act, promoting school stability and success for foster children by:

• Forbidding states from segregating foster children by forcing them to attend separate, and often inferior schools, unless it is documented that particular foster children have disabilities that must be addressed in alternative educational settings under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

• Requiring each state Department of Education to designate a foster care coordinator to collaborate with the state child welfare agency.

• Requiring states to create a process for resolving disputes about whether it is in a foster child’s best interest to remain in a particular school after moving to a new school district.

• Requiring states to develop systems to ensure that foster children can transfer and recover credits when they change schools, and that foster children who have attended multiple high schools with different graduation requirements can graduate.

• Providing states, school districts, and child welfare agencies with funding to improve the educational stability of foster children.

In Philadelphia a charter school for high school students who are involved in the foster care system opened this year. Arise Academy seeks to offer rigorous academics along with the social supports needed by these students. Both of these programs show the importance of ensuring that all of our children have a chance to get a good education.

Public Hearings - Philadelphia Foster Care

While everyone is recovering from Thanksgiving and making preparations for the holidays, the Adoption Center is planning for critically important Public Hearings. We have been asked to testify before the Joint Committee on Public Health and Human Services and Legislative Oversight on adoption and foster care policies and programs in the City of Philadelphia. We hope to explore ways to improve the process by decreasing wait times, implementing strategies to reduce the number of children that age out of the system and address concerns that discourage people from considering adoption.

The hearing will occur on Tuesday December 15 at 10:00AM in Philadelphia City Council Chambers (City Hall Room 400).

Staff, volunteers, and adoptive parents representing the National Adoption Center/Adoption Center of Delaware Valley will provide testimony as to their experiences with “the system” and recommending changes that would help expedite increased adoptions of our most vulnerable children and youth.

We invite you to be present at these hearings. If you cannot attend, we encourage you to write a letter/e-mail describing your own experiences, or those of someone you know along with any recommendations you may have. Please send your correspondence directly to me and it will be distributed to the Committee prior to the hearings.

In Pennsylvania alone there are 20,000 children in foster care with an average stay of more then 2 years (and sometimes as many as 6) in multiple homes. Every year more then 1,000 “age out” without a permanent family. Please send us your thoughts (email to nac@adopt.org) to include in the meeting. You may also leave any comments in the comments section below. We’ll provide an update in January.

Raise Me Up

More than 500,000 children in this country live in foster care; l20,000 will not be able to return to their families. In Philadelphia, a new public awareness campaign, Raise Me Up, hopes to enlist volunteers and mentors for those children.

In a press conference yesterday, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, and Department of Human Services Commissioner Anne Marie Ambrose said that the city cannot do the job alone—that its citizens must step up and take a strong role in the lives of the children who are at risk of growing up homeless, despondent, less likely to complete high school and more likely to end up in a life of crime, addiction and poverty.

The Honorable Max Baer, justice of Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court, said that ideally children should be raised by their own families, if possible. When they cannot and are placed in foster care, he or she has a better chance of success if there is a mentor involved in his life. “Foster parents are wonderful,” he said, “but foster care is a flawed system. Children need permanent families.”

We agree. If a child can not be returned to his birth family, we believe that adoption should be his or her goal. Meanwhile, mentors and volunteers can help boost a child’s confidence and contribute to his self-esteem. But an adoptive family should be sought for him before he succumbs to the devastating outcomes inevitably visited on children without permanence in their lives.

Foster Care's Impact on Education

One of the major complaints of children who live in foster care is that their education is interrupted each time they move to a different foster home and need to change schools. They say that these disruptions put them at an academic and social disadvantage.

In an effort to remedy that situation, the first high school for children in foster care will open in Philadelphia in September, 2009. Called Arise Academy, the school will enroll 200 children from ninth through twelfth grade. In the event that a child is moved to another foster home during the school year, he will have the choice of changing schools or remaining at Arise Academy through the completion of his high school education.

It is expected that the children’s academic performance will improve and that they will feel more connected to the students they meet at school. Sixty percent of the children who have given input into the design, nature and intent of the new school have said that being a foster child in a school where most children live with birth parents has made them feel stigmatized. They believed that they would be more comfortable in a setting where all of the children were living in foster homes. Still, there is controversy about the wisdom of a school limited to foster children. Would it be better for them to remain in their neighborhood schools and learn adjustment to the larger world in which they will live? Or will their improved grades and more satisfying social connections be reflected in their increased self-esteem and an enthusiasm for learning? What do you think?

Match Parties for Teens

“Family is very important because they’re the main ones you can look to when something goes wrong or you need a helping hand.”

“It would be really great having a home for the holidays, just sitting around and opening presents.”

“I need someone to be there for me.”

These are teens in foster care talking.

To help teens in Pennsylvania find “forever” families, we recently held two teen match parties (one in Philadelphia, the other in Pittsburgh), sponsored by the Pennsylvania Statewide Adoption and Permanency Network (SWAN). The goal was to bring together in a relaxed, fun setting teens waiting for a family and families wanting to adopt an older child. Families who had already completed their home study were invited to participate.

Prior to the parties, two events were held in each city to prepare the teens. A facilitator led them through a series of activities designed to help them feel comfortable and to see both what they had in common and how they differed. They learned that it was okay to be themselves. In addition, the teens felt empowered when they were asked for their input on activities for their match party.

The pre-events helped the teens to relax and enjoy themselves at the match parties as they interacted with potential adoptive families. At the match parties, each youth was presented with a certificate and a t-shirt imprinted with a photo of a person the teen said had influenced him/her.

In Philadelphia, 18 of the 22 teens attending the match party received inquiries from families, Nine of the ten teens attending in Pittsburgh had inquiries. After the parties, teens were asked for their views of the day. Among the responses:
• It was great and wonderful to be around new people, both kids and adults.
• Awesome…there’s somebody who cares for you and wants to help you find a family. .
• You get to meet families and other kids in the same situation.
• It was fun and entertaining.

Families also had a good time. One family said, “We truly enjoyed our day and meeting the kids. Hopefully, we have found a match. It is so much better to meet the children in person, as opposed to a picture on a web site.”

Celebration of Family 2009

Last night was our Celebration of Family gala at the Crystal Tea Room. The party was well-attended and it looked like a good time was had by all. Ron and Suzanne Naples were our honorees. And Clarence and Denise McGregor Armbrister were the recipients of our Alison Award. A special touch was having Mayor Michael A. Nutter come out to share a few words about our honorees. We thank him for taking time out of his busy schedule to honor the Naples and the Armbrister's in such a personal way. Vai Sikahema, Steve Highsmith and Stan Hochman did a great job keeping the event moring along.

Again, we'd like to thanks our sponsors: Wendy's, Wawa, Wyeth, Sunoco Logistics, PECO, Independence Blue Cross, Quaker, GreenbergTraurig, Consulting Services of Princeton, Margaret G. Jacobs Charitable Trust. Our volunteers from Independence Blue Cross and Aetna did a fantastic job, thanks to each and every one of you. We also thank all those who donated items for the auctions and all those happy shoppers!

A special thanks to Chris Marrero, our photographer for the evening. He captures special events and specializes in fine art portrait photography. See more of the night's photos on our social network site.

A Special Visit With Mayor Nutter.

Last week, for our Freddie Mac Foundation's Wednesday’s Child Program, Philadelphia, we had visit with Mayor Nutter. The taping was conducted with a Philadelphia child, Niesha. She wrote a school paper on Mayor Michael Nutter and her research sparked an interest in meeting him.

Their visit started out in the Mayor’s office where he asked Niesha questions about school, sports, family and inquired about her future goals. Niesha happily answered, but she also had the opportunity to ask several questions of her own. She asked about his education, the amount of work he did for the city and she also shared a secret she knew about him that most people don’t. She told him that she knew he used to be a DJ in his younger years. Well, Mayor Nutter was very shocked she had found this out and confessed he was indeed a DJ as a youngster! Wednesday’s Child host Vai Sikahema, Mayor Nutter, and Niesha all laughed.

The visit ended with Mayor Nutter allowing Niesha to sit in his official chair where he presented her with a new, old-school-style Phillies hat. For everyone, the day was a huge success!

"Gottahava Wawa"

In these times of great economic distress, we would like to salute one of our more generous corporate partners. Wawa, a terrific chain of mid-Atlantic convenience stores, recently contributed $110,000 to the Adoption Center. These funds represented the total dollars contributed by its New Jersey Customers via in-store collections in the 3rd Quarter of 2008.

Many of Wawa’s core values are universal:
Value People
Delight Customers
Embrace Change
Do the Right Thing
Do Things Right
Passion for Winning

In the US at this time, we all need to follow their path and value people, embrace change, do the right thing and do things right. Our country and her people would be so much better for it.

The Adoption Center recognizes Wawa for their generous support and would love to hear more stories of extraordinary giving in these extraordinary times.

Monday's Child

We wanted to remind everyone of a partnership the National Adoption Center has with a local newspaper. We work with the Philadelphia Inquirer to feature a youth who is ready for adoption from the foster care system. This feature appears every Monday.

Here is a link to today's featured youth, Ashley. You may read all about her by going to the Inquirer's website by clicking here.

FACE2FACE: Teen Match Parties

The National Adoption Center invites prospective parents who are interested in adopting older youth to join us for two exciting events:

Philadelphia, Pa.
March 28, 2009 – 11:00 am – 3:00 pm
Pittsburgh, Pa.
May 9, 2009 – 10:00 am – 2:00 pm

Prospective adoptive parents who are approved by their agency will meet 25-30 teens who would like to be adopted. Families and youth will participate in fun activities, enjoy watching a hip hop dance troupe and eat lunch.

There is no fee to attend. Registration is limited. Sorry, children and relatives of prospective parents may not attend.

Please contact Julie Marks, project manager, with questions. She may be reached at 215-735-9988x367 or pateen@adopt.org

We'll have an online registration form available shortly.