Children come to foster care from all walks of life and every community. Most enter foster care due to abuse or neglect, while others exhibit behavioral disorders. As a foster care provider, Saint Francis strives to keep sibling groups together and in their home community. If possible, we place them with family members. Yet sometimes that’s not possible. Still, whatever the child’s story, foster care is and should always remain a last resort.
The same is true with adoption.
Children in foster care become available for adoption when all attempts to reunite a child with their birth parents have failed. A child can be adopted once parental rights are severed by the court (not by Saint Francis). That’s when a child most needs a “forever family,” a place to belong.
National Adoption Day (Saturday, November 19th) honors those adoptive families and the children they welcome as one of their own.
Founded in 2000, it’s a collective effort to raise awareness of the more than 113,000 children waiting to be adopted from foster care in the United States.
According to NationalAdoptionDay.org, “the first National Adoption Day was inspired by the innovative efforts of Michael Nash, a former presiding judge of Los Angeles County’s Juvenile Court. He opened the court on Saturdays, engaged the volunteer efforts of court personnel and finalized adoptions to reduce the backlog of one of the busiest courts in the nation.”
That tradition continues in many communities where Saint Francis Ministries serves.
Every National Adoption Day, children in foster care are formally adopted, thanks to the volunteer efforts of judges, attorneys, and court staff. For these court workers, SFM employees, and adoptive families, it’s a day of happy tears.
In a profession often filled with heartbreak, National Adoption Day offers child welfare workers (and the rest of us) a chance to celebrate new beginnings, hope for the future, and loving families.
To learn more about adoption with Saint Francis Ministries, visit this page.
Maybe next year, we can celebrate you and your new family members.
