Friday, March 12, 2010

Surrounded by Teenagers

and I'm alone. Funny how that works, huh?

This time I'm not talking about my own. I'm talking about kids that need homes. It's the time of the month where I post children to email lists that are waiting to be adopted. You've heard me blog about it before.

And this month, in particular, there are a whole bunch of teenage boys. Lots of them. Fifteen, sixteen seventeen year olds who have had long hard lives in the system. Some have been in foster care most of their lives.... since they were in preschool. And the chances of them being adopted are so few. Each time I find one family who will take a teenager I am thrilled. But this month I have 33 teenagers to recruit for. One family is a needle in a haystack. 33 Families. Impossible.

But for me a kid like this is nearly irresistible. Look at him!

Very discouraging to think of where they all will be in 1-5 years from now.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Oh wow! He looks like my five year old son! If I did not have pre-teen daughters I would be very interested in learning more about him. Someday when my little kids are not little anymore I will definitely foster and adopt teens.
-Kerry

jonavia1 said...

How can we access the list of teens needing to be adopted?

Lulu McCabe said...

We connected with the 16 year old boy we're adopting through a program called Kidsave. You hang out together at group event, and if a connection emerges, you commit to "hosting" the kid for some weekends and see how it goes. I think this model works really well to get teenagers placed because chemistry is everything. I wish it were available in more cities. Meanwhile, all I can say is, don't lose hope! Adopting him is the very best thing we ever did. There's a fit for those kids and it's awesome that you're working on their behalf.

Claudia said...

Anyone who has a completed home study can register with Adopt America and be put on the list to receive posts about teenagers and kids as well who are available for adoption. Many of the kids are not yet listed on photolistings...