National Adoption Day 2008

National Adoption Day is a collective national effort to raise awareness of the 129,000 children in foster care waiting to find permanent, loving families. For the last eight years, National Adoption Day has made the dreams of thousands of children come true by working with courts, judges, attorneys, adoption professionals, child welfare agencies and advocates to finalize adoptions and find permanent, loving homes for...

Ladies Lunch

My daughters & I recently went out to lunch with my aunt Mary (my mothers sister, with Shawna on the right) and my cousin Maryann (my mothers first cousin, with Jacqueline on the left) to our favorite Chinese buffet. I had to share this picture because I love how everybody looks so happy. Share Tags: Older Child Adoption, parents of adopted...

Urge Senate To Reauthorize Adoption Incentive Prog...

(rainbowmom thank you for passing this along from our adoption forums) ACTION ALERT: Ask Senators on the Finance Committee to act NOW to reauthorize the Adoption Incentive Program and help support adoption and relative guardianship Today, more than 127,000 children and young people in foster care are waiting to leave the system – for good – to join permanent families. Every day without a permanent family feels like a...

Missouri Adoption Heart Gallery

Missouri Adoption Heart Gallery coming to St. Joseph by Sylvia Anderson Donald J. is a 10-year-old boy who loves cats, dogs, semi-trucks, going to church and watching Sponge Bob Square Pants on TV. He’s much like other boys his age, except for one thing: Donald dreams of having a family. “Someone to love me and I get to stay there forever,” he told the Missouri Department of Social Services. Just looking at his sweet...

Treat Dad To Frosty And Help Children In Foster Ca...

My daughters (who we adopted through foster care) took my husband to Wendy’s for a Fathers Day frosty last year and they intend to take him again this year. The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption is such a great organization and is one that everyone in the adoption community should support! TREAT DAD TO A FATHER’S DAY FROSTY AND HELP CHANGE THE LIVES OF CHILDREN IN FOSTER CARE DUBLIN, OHIO (May 27, 2008) – Forgo...

Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption Announces Top ...

(Dublin, OH – May 1, 2008) It’s the list that prompted policy change. After the first Best Adoption-Friendly Workplaces in America list debuted in 2007, more than 50 organizations nationwide established or enhanced their adoption benefits for 2008. As a result, employers who made the top 100 list released today by the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption offered more robust adoption benefits packages this year to make it....

Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute Transracial A...

The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute issued a 58 page report of transracial adoption. Basically they want to adequately prepare white families before they can adopt black children and they want to seek out and recruit more black families to adopt black foster children. I see two issues here…… 1) I don’t care what color you are, unless you live under a rock how could black families not know that black...

Keeping In Touch With Former Foster Parents

I’ve blogged about the great relationship we have with our children’s former foster parents. They’re such great people and we get together with them a couple of times a year. Becoming a foster parent is usually a decision someone makes because they want to help children in need. The foster care system is not without it’s faults and problems, but they have helped a lot of children, including my own...

May Is National Foster Care Month

AMERICANS CALLED ON TO ‘CHANGE A LIFETIME’ FOR OVER HALF A MILLION U.S. YOUTH IN FOSTER CARE May is National Foster Care Month; Partnership Marks ‘20 Years of Caring’ Over 513,000 American children are in foster care because their own families are in crisis and unable to provide for their essential wellbeing. Like all young people, youth in foster care deserve and benefit from enduring, positive relationships with...

A Different Kind Of Normal

A Different Kind of Normal by Joan McNamara Every adoption has its own story, woven from the tears and hopes of each person and family involved. For some families, the process of adoption is itself a grand adventure; for others it’s a painful and challenging ordeal. After adoption, while some parents and children seem to “live happily ever after,” or at least bump along normally, a smaller number of families...

15 Questions To Ask Before Adopting Older Children

Adopting older children is not for the faint of heart. I have three children that we adopted at the ages of 5, 8 & 11 and if anything, it’s never boring. Linny, the co-administrator at our adoption forums compiled a list of honest, informative questions to ask before you adopt an older child through the foster care system. “My dh and I have adopted seven children to date. However, our ‘forever...

Foster Care Video from the Dave Thomas Foundation

The Dave Thomas Foundation does wonderful work in raising awareness of the need for families for children in foster care. Related Tags: foster care, older child adoption Share Tags: foster care, Older Child Adoption Related posts Wendy’s Raised Over $1 Million for Adoption (2) Urge Senate To Reauthorize Adoption Incentive Program...

Reality Of The Hurt Adoptee

A local magazine, Family Times, interviewed me in last September about older child adoption. One of the many issues I spoke about was when people tell my children that they “have a new life now”. I disagree. It’s still the same life, just a new chapter in it. What happened in their earlier years are part of who they are today, not just in some other life. We don’t try to make it pretty. We don’t...

29 Adoptions in Seattle Finalized on National Adop...

Court finalizes 29 adoptions By PAUL NYHAN P-I REPORTER Most parents meet their children in the delivery room, a few even earlier in their dreams, but Kymberli Nelson met her daughter Maci in the emergency room. Three years ago, a foster care coordinator called Nelson to ask if she would take on the severely malnourished baby girl, though only if Maci survived the night. Nelson didn’t hesitate, driving her Cadillac to...

Wendy’s Raised Over $1 Million for Adoption

…and my children were part of it. My daughters, adopted through foster care, took their dad to Wendy’s on Fathers Day for a Frosty to support this wonderful cause. I think Dave Thomas would be proud. News Release 6.20.2007 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE FROM WENDY’S INTERNATIONAL CONTACT: Bob Bertini 614/764-3327 WENDY’S CUSTOMERS CELEBRATE FATHER’S DAY WITH A FROSTY; RAISE MORE THAN $1 MILLION FOR THE CAUSE OF...

Free Teleseminar For Mothers Raising Children With...

Join Heather T. Forbes, LCSW for a discussion based off of her research study on the stressors mothers face in raising children with trauma histories. Published in the Journal of Social Work, this study not only validates mother’s struggles, but also reassures that they adoptive and foster care mothers really aren’t going crazy! This free teleseminar will be held on Thursday, May 10, 2007 at; 9:00 p.m. EDT 8:00...

May is Foster Care Month

Over 513,000 American children are in foster care because their own families are in crisis and unable to provide for their essential wellbeing. Like all young people, youth in foster care deserve and benefit from enduring, positive relationships with caring adults. Now is the time to get involved. Join America’s leading child welfare agencies, advocates, experts and foster care alumni as they come together to address...

Texas Needs Families For Older Children

Joyce James with Child Protective Services says more than half of the state’s 4000 abused and neglected children are over 9 years old. “While older children linger longer in foster care, we believe they deserve and need stable and loving families just as much as younger children.” James says her department has begun a program called ‘Why Not Me’ to get the message to potential adoptive families...

Couple Adopts Sibling Group of Eight

My husband & I adopted a sibling group of three although we would have been open to a larger one, if we had more room. I think it’s great that this couple was able to adopt all eight of these kids. For the past seven years, Kathy and Dave Bain have opened their home and hearts to dozens of foster children who have been victims of physical abuse in their biological homes, were born with fetal alcohol syndrome or...

Dave Thomas Foundation

The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption is close to my heart because my own children came to us through a foster care adoption. They help bring awareness to foster care adoption through programs such as “Adoption-Friendly Workplace” and their annual television special ‘A Home For the Holidays’ and From their site: …dedicated to dramatically increasing the adoptions of the more than 140,000...