Showing posts with label foster care system. Show all posts
Showing posts with label foster care system. Show all posts

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Working My First Match Party

written by Katie, our Development Manager, and now fully-initiated NAC co-worker

Last week I attended my first match party hosted by the National Adoption Center. Going into it, I wasn’t sure what to expect. All I knew was that match parties put youth seeking adoptive families and adults approved to adopt together in a pressure-free setting, in hopes that some “magic” will happen; that a family will form.

The match party was held at Arnold’s Family Fun Center in Oaks, PA – a giant warehouse-like building that boasts go-karts, laser tag, an arcade and bowling…in short, a kid’s dream world. This party was designed for older youth and teens, an age group that is often overlooked in the rush for babies and younger children.

Amid games of ski-ball and bumper car rides, I watched how the youth and prospective adoptive families interacted. I saw one couple in particular who really connected with two teens. They spent the entire day together – the wife and a girl of about 14 sporting ear-to-ear smiles while in line for laser tag and the husband battling it out on a seemingly never-ending video game with a boy who looked about 13. At the end of the party it was clear they had made an impact on one another. Pulling out of Arnold’s at the end of the day, I wondered if these sparks would catch; if I had witnessed the making of a family.

Monday, March 19, 2012

Virginia Adoption

Virginia’s General Assembly recently passed a state law which allows any adoption agency, including state-funded agencies, to turn away qualified adoptive parents based on religious and moral beliefs, including sexual orientation. The legislation codifies last year’s State Board of Social Services regulation to allow faith-based organizations to reject prospective parents based on gender, age, religion, disability, sexual orientation and family status. While the prevailing debate mainly focuses on faith-based convictions to join children with gay parents, the sweeping language leaves room for further discrimination by private agencies on the basis of religious and moral criteria of their choosing. Governor Robert McDonnell signed this anti-gay adoption bill when it reached his desk. Virginia now joins North Dakota as the only two states having what is termed a “conscience clause” in law. This is in contrast to nine states which explicitly prohibit this kind of discrimination in adoption. Virginia state law already prohibits unmarried couples to adopt, but does allow single people to adopt, regardless of sexual orientation.

There are approximately 1,300 children in Virginia waiting to be adopted and this law further limits the number of safe, loving and permanent caregivers that are available to them. The National Adoption Center STRONGLY rejects the premise that any prospective parent(s) should be rejected based on race, gender, religion and sexual orientation. What do you think?

Friday, January 6, 2012

Waiting Children

There are about 500,000 American children in the foster-care system on any given day. Of these, 100,000 will be or already are available for adoption. Few are orphans. In fact, most still have at least one birth parent. However the parent is unable to care for his/her children through circumstance, such as having a tough addiction problem. Or maybe the parents neglect the children or, worst of all, maybe the children were abused - leaving social workers and the courts no choice but to place them with foster parents who can provide a safe haven and genuine, though temporary, care. Many of these kids have "special needs." They may be older or paired with a brother or sister. Some may be physically or emotionally fragile. But no child is "unadoptable."

There are many great parents out there who are eager to open their homes and their hearts to these wonderful boys and girls. How can we bring these parents and kids together? What will it take to help the thousands of American children in foster care? There's no easy answer, and each child in each state presents unique challenges because, unfortunately, adoption laws vary from state to state. We can, however, do a lot to make it easier for waiting kids and parents to connect and build families. Every child deserves a home and a loving family. By improving adoption process, we help the children find the permanence they need.

Monday, November 14, 2011

Changing the Foster Care Adoption Process

The September issue of Children and Youth Services Review provides a qualitative study of nine families going through the foster care adoption process; three of them have already dropped out. Researchers noted the factors that support completion: a caring, competent social worker; supportive family and friends; involvement in counselling or parent-support activities. They also identified hindering factors including poor worker performance; the time-consuming and daunting nature of the process; and matching parameters that were too rigid. They also found that families needed to hear from workers often during the long waiting process.

The research recommends rethinking the manner in which agencies match children by having prospective parents check criteria they would accept or not accept and presenting only children who exactly match those criteria. Do you believe these suggestions will help expedite the process?

Monday, October 17, 2011

Identity

contributed by intern, Abbigail Facey

Understanding one’s identity is a process that takes time to fully appreciate. For many it takes years to understand not only who they are but how their lives correlate to the functioning of the greater society. “How do I fit in the world?” is a question generations before us have pondered and one that will likely be contemplated for years to come. "What makes me unique, different from everyone else, and valuable to the world?" - question echoed throughout the ages.

Personally, I have found that the process of understanding my identity is directly correlated to the connection I have with my family. They have impressed upon me the importance of staying associated with others, honoring the aged, valuing hard work and dedication, and reaching out to those in need. While each family may have varied values and belief systems, I believe each of those value systems significantly impacts the development of one’s identity. To understand one’s identity is to develop a purpose driven life.

I believe that the National Adoption Center helps youth to do just that; develop a connection to the world and understand their identity in society. How? By championing adoption for all children in need, even the older youths, thus working to ensure that every child can have permanent connections to family. I would not be where I am today had it not been for the direction, guidance, care, and influence of my parents. I believe every child deserves the influence of parents who will offer the love and support a child needs especially in their formative years.
I am absolutely thrilled to be interning for an organization that cares so deeply about the development of youth. The Center works, not only for the betterment of young people, but society through its programs that work to prevent incarceration, homelessness, and high school dropout. (All of which occur at higher rates for those children who age out of the system.) It is my hope that through this internship I will learn the success stories of adopted children and their parents. I hope this in turn will help me to know more about the process of adoption, and may lead me to consider adoption for my family in the future.

Friday, June 3, 2011

Fixing the System

The story below from the Huffington Post is unfortunately very typical, and just about any state can be substituted for California. What can we do to make the system more user-friendly for prospective parents who want to adopt from the foster care system?

from the Huffington Post  May 25, 2011
For James and Stephanie, their experience with California's public agencies is where the adoption process became a story of frustration, unreturned calls, and irrational bureaucracy. It took over a year before they were even considered for a waiting child. Their struggle presents a case study in the obstacles that face anyone trying to adopt a child from a public agency in California.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-katz/california-adoption-why-is-it-so-hard_b_854715.html

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

The Tragedy of Aging Out

Thirty thousand children leave foster care each year without any family. The technical term for this is "emancipation." The better description is "unconscionable failure."

In most states, children leaving foster care at 18 (or 21 in some places)receive a small one-time payment -- in New York City it’s $750, not even enough for a security deposit on a small apartment. It is not uncommon for a social worker to drive that 18year old to a homeless shelter for his or her first night of "emancipation." According to the largest study ever conducted of kids who had aged out of foster care, by their mid-twenties, only half of these young adults were employed. Nearly 60% of the men had been convicted of a crime. Two thirds of the women were receiving food stamps.

The great tragedy of kids aging out of foster care is just how unnecessary it is. The system for adopting children from foster care is badly broken. Look at any child aging out and you will see lost opportunities -- the 9-year-old whose worker didn't return phone calls from a prospective parent, the 12 year old who wasn't placed because terrific potential parents lived in another state. The 14 year old the state decided to prepare for "independent living" rather than focus on adoption.
Children come into foster care because a state determines there is abuse or neglect. When the state decides that a child can't go home and terminates parental rights, that child becomes, in both a legal and moral sense, our child.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

South Carolina Law

There is a new law which hopes to improve the adoption process in South Carolina. The improvements will come in two ways: (1) Time limits will be in place that will allow foster families to adopt children more quickly and, (2) It will put less emphasis on keeping birth families together, in cases where the parents are substance abusers or mentally ill. (Full details here)

Do you think these actions will result in more adoptions of children in the foster care system? What other measures can we take?

Friday, March 5, 2010

2010 FosterClub Outstanding Young Leader Award

Do you know an outstanding young person who spent time in the foster care system and whose perseverance, resilience and contribution to the community made him or her an inspiration to others?

If so, please nominate that person for a 2010 FosterClub Outstanding Young Leader Award.

For the third year, the FosterClub, a national network for young people in foster care, will honor100 of them for their success in overcoming ”challenging circumstances and are now finding different ways to give back to their community and disprove negative stereotypes about young people in foster care.”

Nominees must be aged 16-24 as of May 1, 2010 and must have spent some time in foster care. Young people can nominate themselves or be nominated by someone they know.

Deadline is March 15, 2010.

Further information and nomination form here.

Monday, December 7, 2009

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.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Help for Those Who Age Out

Each year more than 20,000 young people “age out” of the foster care system. For many of them, their childhood and adolescent years were marked by the instability of multiple placements. As a result, these youth are at a higher risk for unemployment, poor academic achievement, early parenthood and homelessness than their peers living at home with their families.

When youth in foster care “age out,” they no longer have the assistance of the state or foster families and many of them do not have the skills to live on their own. According to an article in Children’s Issues, in just four years after leaving foster care, 25% of “aged out” youth have been homeless, 42% have become parents, fewer than 20% are able to support themselves, and only 46% have graduated from high school.

Unable to earn a wage sufficient for obtaining suitable housing, many end up in homeless shelters. In Philadelphia, the People’s Emergency Center (PEC) and the University of Pennsylvania School of Design are collaborating in a project to develop innovative affordable housing. The project, the Bernice Eliza Homes in the West Powelton section of the city, is a recently opened new six-family apartment house catering to hard-to-place homeless youth with children.

According to Gloria Guard, president of the non-profit PEC, which provides shelter and service to homeless families, there is a great demand for this type of housing. Many of those in the organization’s shelters have “aged out” of the city’s foster care system. For them, the PEC is providing hope for the future as well as a home.

Friday, October 2, 2009

Terminating Parental Rights

“If it comes to a point that the family is so toxic for the child that termination of parental rights and staying in foster care (thus making the child free to be adopted) is in the child’s best interest, I don’t have a problem with it at all. Why would I want to keep a connection between a toxic parent and a child?” This is one judge’s comment in a recent Brief by Child Trends a research organization based in Washington D.C. Sounds reasonable, doesn't it. Yet often it seems that judges are loathe to terminate parental rights. Is this because of a belief that it is a right to raise a child any way a parent sees fit?

What advice would you give the judiciary in helping them to decide when it’s appropriate to terminate the parental rights of a child? Is it ever appropriate or not appropriate? Would it help more children to be adopted rather then continue to languish in foster care while waiting for their biological parents to “get their act together?”

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

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.