There is a child out there who is waiting for a kind soul to give him or her a chance to have a better life or to offer refuge for the healing of emotional pain and a broken character. That is what adoption and foster care is all about – giving a young innocent person the chance to be part of a conventional society where he or she can become a respectable citizen. You can make that difference for the child if you have the heart, the compassion, the discipline, flexibility, and an adequate financial means to sustain for the future of the child.
In both cases of adoption and foster care, you take over the parental responsibility over the child. However, your legal obligation becomes permanent when you decide to adopt the child provided the he or she is available for adoption. The process of adoption can be lengthy and tedious because the entire welfare of the child is given utmost consideration. You can be an adoptive parent regardless of status, whether single or married, gay or straight provided you have the capabilities to raise the child in a healthy environment as determined by the proper regulatory agencies.
Children recommended for foster care do not necessarily become candidates for adoption because the main objective is to reunite them with their biological parents or birth families as soon as the conditions for a normal family life are established. Fostering is only a temporary responsibility where you fill in the gap of nurturing the child while in a state of separation from birth families. Financial assistance in caring for the child is provided by the government social service agency responsible in your area. Monitoring the welfare of the child is a triangular set up where you, as the foster parent, the biological family and the social service through a social worker are involved.
There are several reasons why children are placed under foster care. The more common conditions include physical and verbal abuse, parental neglect that is detrimental to the health and well being of the child, sexual abuse and incarceration of the legal guardian due to a crime committed. The psychological and emotional stress that the child is exposed to may take a heavy toll in their perception or the lack of it of what a normal person or a conventional society is.
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, there were 273,000 children placed in foster care for the year 2008 with an average age of 8 years old, and the majority of whom were infants and children up to 4 years of age. The number of teenagers with ages ranging from 13 to 17 years were quite significant also. More than half of these children returned to their respective families while about 20 were adopted. As of September 30, 2008, there were 123,000 children waiting for adoption.
Adoption and foster care is a reality in our society particularly in highly urbanized areas where the environment is so fast paced and competition is fierce that parents and individuals alike tend to neglect nurturing the fundamentals of a healthy family relationship. The growing number of divorced parents has also contributed in challenging the ideals of a basic institution which is the family. However, these are inevitable changes that our society has to recognize, and for as long as there are individuals like you who will take on the responsibility of ensuring that children without parents and families have the opportunity to taste and enjoy that sense of belonging, then you will have made a difference.
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