Each November, our county shines its brightest spotlight on adoption with National Adoption Awareness Month. This is a time to celebrate those whose lives are impacted by adoption and to support expectant mothers in difficult circumstances who are courageously making adoption plans for their children.
This is also a time to raise awareness of the children in foster care who are waiting to be adopted and to raise the collective consciousness about adoption, starting right here in our own corner of the sky. Our foster care kids are crying out, yet discouragingly more children enter the foster care system each year than leave. Tragically, many “age out” at age 18, their hopes and dreams for adoption vanquished, left to stare down the harrowing world that is adulthood without the comfort, care, and guidance of a “forever family.” These foster care kids endure enough, with many not just bouncing from pillar to post among various foster homes, but many also frequently wrenched away and separated from siblings. We must not consign these children to a life devoid of the sanctuary and sheltering storm that a “forever family” provides.
Step up to help the over 102,000 foster care children that are eligible for adoption. You may be one person, but to one foster care child, you just well may be the world!
Jeanne T. Tate, Board Certified Florida Adoption Attorney
PUBLISHED IN THE TAMPA BAY TIMES ON 11.24.20
