Life is crazy busy. I am loving it -- this is my kind of living -- lots of professional challenges, lots of new people to meet and things to do -- and very little family drama.
Today I discovered that the
AFCARS stimates for 2011 had been released and I had to stop everything and look them over. There was some good news. The number of children in foster care is declining and was down to 400,540 by the end of 2011. At that same time, 104,236 children were legally free and waiting to be adopted. That number keeps decreasing which is awesome news.
The funny thing is though, that even though the number of kids in foster care goes down, and the number of adoptions goes up, the number of kids aging out of the system seems to go up every year.
26,286.
Way
Too
Many.
That's why I work frantically. That is why I am so passionate. That is why I firmly believe that we have to find solutions. Adults need families. By the time a child is a legal adult, we must find them a permanent "parent" -- someone committed to them for life.
Twenty Thousand
Two Hundred
and Eighty Six Too Many.
1 comment:
Did you adopt any children who were aged 15-18 at the time of adoption? Have you assisted with any adoptions of kids in this age range? At such an independent stage of a person's life, do teenagers see their adoptive parents as forever parents to depend on, or more as mentors or worse, nuisances?
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