A Home to Call Their Own

I hesitate to write about or recommend that which I have not tried, but this is a topic of too great importance to neglect just because of that. The topic is the need for more people to take up the challenge of being foster parents, especially to older children.

Not only are older children more difficult to place in foster care and to be adopted, I had never given much thought to what happens when kids "age out" of foster care programs, traditionally at the age of 18. An 18-year-old, no matter what he or she thinks, is hardly grown up. Think of your own children, and how much support and guidance they still need or needed through the many challenges of the young adult years.

The years from 18-25 are extremely important and critical in launching young people to successful lives. If you look at the crime statistics or police blotter columns in any newspaper, very often the ages of kids in trouble with the law are 18-25.

One adoption professional said she was hit by the starkness of what one 18-year-old put on his employment application for an emergency contact number. He wrote "911," because he didn't have anyone else to put down as an emergency contact.

Another young man, Jelani, (reported in USA Today), worked himself through college completely on his own, after being put into foster care at age eight after his mother checked herself into a psychiatric hospital. He lived in six different foster homes until his 18th birthday, and then held down three jobs and took out loans to complete college. But he said the day he graduated was actually a sad day. While others were congratulated by family, he had no one special who came to his graduation. He was there basically alone.

There are approximately 518,000 children in foster care, according to a report from the U.S. Administration for Children and Families. Of these, 118,000 are waiting to be adopted. These numbers are actually lower than in previous years, so at least progress has been made.

Nearly half (49 percent) of those waiting for adoption are children over the age of nine. Many of them do have special needs and circumstances or they wouldn't be where they are. Many kids feel stigma or are teased about being foster kids. Some potential foster parents are scared off by what they hear about the frequency of foster parents facing false allegations of neglect or harsh discipline. So it is not something to enter into lightly.

Those who age out of the foster care system are more likely to end up in jail, be homeless, or sexually abused, say the experts. One third had no high school diploma or GED, nearly half of the females were pregnant at least once by age 19, and nearly a third had at least one living child, says Mark Courtney, director of the Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago, who studied 736 youth ages 17-19 after they exited the foster care system. A Web site called "Adopt Us Kids" hosts a national photo listing of older children desiring adoption. Some older children don't want to be adopted because they don't want to sever ties to biological parents.

But many want to be adopted and can adapt to adoptive parents even after entering the teen years. One girl, Latisha, who was finally adopted at the age of 14, entered foster care at the age of eight. On the Adopt Us Kids Web site, she shares her personal journey: "When I was eight, I came into foster care not knowing what was ahead of me in my life. I went from home, to group home, to shelters. When I was about nine and a half, I was asked if I wanted to be adopted. It sounded great to me. So they started looking and all I had to do was sit there and wait and, of course, keep up the good behavior. One day they found [parents] and I was extremely excited to meet them.

"But you have to wait six months before you can officially be adopted, so I waited. I don't know what to call it, but things were going a little bit on the down side for me and this family, so as it turns out, I was moved. When I went into another foster home, I was about eleven or twelve and I felt like I wasn't wanted, so I started to act up a bit. Well that didn't make it any better because no one wants a "bad" child. I straightened up and started waiting and behaving again. After I turned twelve, I gave up. I thought no home would want me. Luckily I had the best case worker ever that saved my life. We waited about three months and finally my future Mom and Dad came along. The first time I met them, I knew it was forever. I have been with them for about eight and a half months since the adoption day. I got the family I wanted on my birthday!"

Is God calling you to consider loving or adopting foster children?

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Contributed by Melodie Davis: MelodieD@MennoMedia.org Melodie is the author of eight books and writes a syndicated newspaper column, Another Way