Each November is National Adoption Month. Many adoption organizations and adoptive parent groups have activities. But in recent years the centerpiece of National Adoption Month has been National Adoption Day, when adoptions are celebrated in a festive manner.
This year National Adoption Day is this coming Saturday, November 21st. It will be the tenth annual National Adoption Day. Courts in every state and in Puerto Rico will process and celebrate the adoption finalizations of children from the U.S. foster care system who now have a permanent family through adoption. Many of these events will have a celebration following—sometimes for the general public, sometimes for the new families created that day, sometimes for all adoptive families and/or those interested in adoption. This year adoption professionals estimate that between 3500 and 4000 children will be permanently joined to their families this Saturday.
In addition to the adoption finalizations and celebrations, planned events include information sessions at adoption agencies, activities at support groups hosted by churches, parent organizations and other agencies, library displays of adoption-related books. You can follow this link at the National Adoption Day website to find events in your state.
(Note: Although many courts enjoy opening on Saturday only for adopting families, some courts have scheduled their celebrations for Friday afternoon, Nov. 20)
You may be hearing and public service announcements this week relating to adoption. Most are aimed at increasing awareness of how many kids are in the U.S. foster care system waiting for an adoptive family (The answer: 129,000). The “One Day” PSA, which features older children saying “One day I’ll be done with moving,” “One day I’m going to clean my room,” “One day I’m going to have a family,” “One day I’m going to make you proud.” To view this ad, click here.
The above website and the website for AdoptUSKids have print, video and audio announcements you can view. AdoptUSKids says they will focus their advertising efforts this year on increasing awareness of the 31% of all children in foster care who are African-American (a percentage much higher than the percentage of youth in the general population who are African-American). Some of their promotional efforts are on this website. (The PSAs I saw here didn’t seem to me to be highly specific to African-American or transracial adoption—much of their content could apply to any youth or child and any prospective parents.)
Actress Victoria Rowell, who lived in foster care herself, is in some of the advertising. Rowell, who has a lengthy bio in film and television but is perhaps best known for her character on Dick Van Dyke’s Diagnosis Murder TV series, is now an advocate for foster children.
The websites above also contain information on adoption, and instructions on finding adoption events and following National Adoption Day coverage on Twitter. There are profiles of adoptive and foster families sharing their stories. Families shown are all colors and range in size from two to thirteen members. Some have adopted children with special needs; some have adopted siblings. Some were their children’s foster parents before they adopted them. The diverse stories can give you a broader picture of adoption from the child welfare system.
Please see these related blogs:
November is National Adoption Awareness Month
Wednesday’s Child – AdoptUSKids.org