Let’s celebrate National Adoption Month together!
To promote the need for more families to care for the large number of children in the foster care system, former Massachusetts Governor Mike Dukakis proclaimed the first week of November “Adoption Week” in 1976. Almost a decade later, President Gerald Ford made “Adoption Week” a national event, and President Bill Clinton extended the week-long national event to a full month in 1998. Today, we celebrate National Adoption Month throughout November, culminating in National Adoption Day on the Saturday before Thanksgiving every year.
Although we’re pursuing a different type of adoption through an agency, there is a special place in our hearts for those working and living in the foster care world. To honor the spirit of this month, we wanted to highlight some of the issues we’ve become aware of as we learn more about the world of adoption. For example:
- In the United States, there are more than 100,000 children in foster care
- California and New York have the largest population of foster care children
- A foster child usually has to wait nearly 4 years to be adopted, but more than 20,000 kids age out of the foster care system at age 18 every year without either forever family or permanent home
But there is hope! Children who have a permanent home and who know they are loved have a drastically improved trajectory for their lives:
No matter your experience with adoption or foster care, here are some ways you can celebrate with us this year:
- Watch a movie with adoption themes: 7 Movies with Adoption Themes
- If you have children or grandchildren, you can read one of these children’s books about adoption to them
- Listen to an adoption story podcasts (on Spotify or iTunes). Some of the most highly rated podcasts we’ve found are:
- Explore the “Youth Voices: Why Family Matters” Gallery
- Consider becoming a foster parent or adopting through foster care – you can learn more here