National Adoption Month

November is National Adoption Month

 

National Adoption Month began in 1995 and is designed to help bring awareness to the need to adopt children from our nation’s foster care system.  This year's theme is "Build Capacity to Make Lasting Change" which focuses on adoption professionals by helping them with strategies to find homes for the 107,000 children waiting for permanent families.

According to the Congressional Coalition on Adoption, every 24 hours 697 children in the U.S. enter the foster care system due to abuse or neglect.  Approximately 87,000 children will be in the system for 3 years or more, and 28,000 young adults will "age out" of the system without a permanent family.

These statistics are heartbreaking! Here is how you can help build awareness: 

• Read the history of National Adoption Month and Day
• Read the President's Adoption Declaration
• Ask your local library to feature adoption friendly books (like We Belong Together, Tell Me Again About The Night I Was Born or God Found Us You)
• Mentor a youth "aging out" of the system (to find a mentee visit your state's foster care website)
• Celebrate adoption in your local community on National Adoption Day on Saturday, November 19. Families, advocates, policymakers and judges will join together and celebrate adoption across the United States on this day. I'll post some specifics about North Carolina activities closer to this date!

Happy National Adoption Month!

For some current articles on adoption, click here, here, here. 

 Disclaimer: We are not adopting from the foster care system currently, but it's not off the table for the future (we are currently focusing on this first domestic infant adoption).