Man did this year fly by and oh, what a year it has been. I have been writing here for a year now and what a great experience that continues to be. This short but busy year a lot has happened that involves foster care and also for me personally.

We will start with the good happenings and changes first. This country is slowly starting to realize when children are removed from their homes and become foster children that the responsibility should last past their 18th birthday. There are so many foster children that are aging out of foster care without the support, guidance, and help that is needed for them to become healthy, responsible young adults. Now, communities and government understand, and are starting to look for ways to help and assist this population of foster children that have been forgotten up until this point. Granted there is much catching up in resolving these issues, in regards to these foster teens and the struggles they face. We realize they need the help and we are working towards resolutions.

More people, companies, and states have become more involved with the goal of National Adoption Month and National Adoption Day or Week to help more foster children find forever homes. On Saturday, November 17, 2007 more than 3,330 foster children adoptions were finalized this day alone throughout this great country (I happened to be one of them… YEAH!!!). So many foster children end up in foster care waiting and hoping for the chance for a forever family throughout this dream ever coming true.

Child welfare is also becoming more open with placing children in need of care with family members known as kinship foster care or placement instead of placing them with a foster family that does not know them. I think this is great and needed, but I also have some great concerns about how it is being handled which I will be writing about in 2008.

Continued…………….


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