There is a real need in the United States to find permanent loving homes for those thousands of children in foster care. The foster care system really can use some revision. Some of the policies are outdated and make it prohibitive to adopt children.
One big factor is risk. Even in cases where unification with a parent is a longshot, the children can be legally unavailable for years. People are afraid to have a child live with them for a year or two or more, only to lose them back to a biological parent that in some cases, the child really would rather not go back to. All relatives are considered as potential parents for the child in foster care, leaving adoptive parents even more at risk of losing the children they are attached to.
Another big problem is that many kids are part of a sibling group and that mean mean adopting two or more kids simultaneously, which is a lot to handle. Bad press and false information about foster kids having "problems" or "issues" or "getting into trouble" also holds potential adoptive parents back from pursuing foster adoption. The older the kids are, the more homes they have been in and out of and the harder it is for them to adjust to a new life in a family. An adoptive family will need lots of time and patience to help their new son or daughter adapt to a new family, new home, new school, new everything.
I know one foster mother who had children of her own and only started to be a foster mother as an occupation. She would foster as many as eight pre teens and teens at a time and collect a nice monthly check-as if she full time job. The problem is-she never cared about the kids. Didn't care what they did, where they went or if they had dinner that night. I have a problem with that, as did her own daughter. It wasn't easy for her to share her parents with dozens of kids, get attached to them and suddenly find they are leaving. She had a very negative view of the foster care system for allowing her own parents to work the system like that. You don't become a foster parent to earn a payheck-you do it to help a child, either permanently or temporarily and treat them as IF THEY WERE YOUR OWN. I don't even agree that money should be give monthly to foster parents. I think, if anything a very small stipend should be given and scholarships should be available to the child upon graduation from high school. Let these children have a chance at a real future, without worrying about where tuition money will come from.
Foster care adoption shouldn't only be for married couples. Open it up to singles and same sex couples. If they can complete a homestudy successfully, and provide financially and emotionally for a child, I don't think restrictions such as marital status, age, or sexual orientation should prohibit them.
My heart breaks to see so many children out there wanting permanent homes. People so unwillng to take the chances and risks to help them. The system needs to be revised so that it better serves the needs of these children and finds permanent loving homes for them more quickly.
November is national adoption month and I hope changes are being considered to the foster care system so that more children may find their foverever homes!
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