How Long Must They Languish in Limbo?

For a number of years it was the intent of our child welfare system that ALL efforts should be to reunify a family after a child was removed from their biological parent(s) for abuse or neglect. Because of this effort thousands of youth remained in foster care for a number of years without permanency. They [...]

A National Adoption Day Celebration

 
Yesterday began as just a normal fall day in Fargo, North Dakota. It was however to be a special day.
I was driving through a light snow fall to the Cass County Courthouse to attend a National Adoption Day ceremony. I had not attended one before and thus had no clue what to expect.
The outside walkway [...]

November – Nat’l Adoption Awareness Month

Thousands of children in foster care await a permanent family; the longer they languish in the system the more damage done to them…they need adoption!
Imagine you’ve been in foster care most or all of your life. Among all the other disappointments you’ve had to deal with, you’ve had no parents, you have been moved time [...]

Foster Care Reimbursement Rates

As you read this please bear in mind that I am highly critical of our current foster care system.
I believe far too many children are  removed from their homes too quickly or for unjustified reasons.
I further believe that that there are children left in homes where they are in imminent danger when they should have [...]

All They Want for Christmas!

Almost fifty-eight years ago, in the early hours of one
morning, a young nineteen year old unwed woman gave
birth to her first child…a boy.
She spent most of her pregnancy in a home for unwed
mothers as her father would not, as he said, allow a
bastard child in his house.
She was uneducated and unable to provide even the
basic [...]

I’m a Child!

The following poem was not written by me.
I read it on a messageboard yesterday. I was moved to tears as I read it as I could so relate to it having spent my entire youth in foster care. Though I aged out of the system almost forty years ago the once closed wounds can very [...]

Petition: All Children Deserve Permanent Homes

Thousands of children enter foster care through no fault of their own, as victims of child abuse, neglect or abandonment.
Unfortunately for too many of these children’s; the hope and dream for a permanent, loving new family never becomes a reality. Over 24,000 children available for adoption will turn 18 and leave the system without a [...]

Analysis of Foster Care System Data

The U. S. Department of Health & Human Services Administration for Children & Families collects data each year from the states as to their foster care system. This, along with other resources, provide for the base of this analysis. There is usually a 2 year lapse in this data collection; thus this data is from [...]

I Was the Child Left Behind

Thoughts of a one lovingly placed for adoption…an adoption that would not happen but rather 18 years of foster care.
 
I watched others being chosen. I was ignored.
I hoped. I waited.
Sometimes they wanted girls, sometimes boys.
Sometimes they wanted a brother and a sister under
five.
I was too young.
I was too old.
Sometimes they looked for a child who [...]

What’s It Like?

Questions of a former foster child: This blogger waited 36 years to just say HELLO to my birth mother and 40 years to do the same with my birth father. Despite this most these question have remained unswered and will forever remain so as both are deceased.
What’s it like:
To know there were shouts of joy [...]

Diary of an Unborn Son

May 3, 1949
I am here today though my mommy doesn’t know it; she
will feel me real soon.
Late May 1949
I am a boy! I can see now and I even have a tail in
which to swim, I love my mommy even if she doesn’t
know that I am her little boy, I am here!
June 1949
My mommy knows [...]

Pro-Life Does NOT End at Birth!

Did the headline catch your attention? I sure hope it did! It is part of a person’s signature on a message board I belong to which I have read numerous times over the past couple of years and it had an impact on me each time I read it. It however took awhile to get [...]