When you’ve spent over 2,100 days in foster care, it’s easy to believe that’s what your forever looks like. After learning about Bethany through Indiana Adoption Program, Melissa and Brian were determined not to let those 2,000+ days be the end of the her story.
Austin & Montana Glenn adopted their infant daughter in 2021. What they learned from that experience is that they had lots more love to give – and wanted to share that with an older child by adopting from foster care. Fast forward, and now their family of 3 has doubled in size, with the addition of twin teen girls and their brother.
An empty nester, Michael realized that he missed having a kid around. This led him to considering adoption from foster care. He was drawn to Jaylen’s profile and after a lengthy process, the two were matched. Read this father’s thoughts on adopting an older youth from foster care, and what prospective families need to know.
Remembering a friend, foster care and adoption advocate, and community builder, the late Barb Freeman, our Family Support Coordinator shares insights gleaned from Barb…and a delicious recipe!
Harmony and her mom, Rebecca, have a lot in common. They both love makeup. They both like to dye their hair fun colors (Harmony maybe more than Rebecca, who says she embraced her rainbow-hued hair mostly because “getting our hair done was something we could do together”). And they both spent 8 years of their lives in foster care.
Children who spend years in foster care waiting for their forever family have every reason to wonder if they’ll ever be adopted. For these three sisters, their forever day came after over 3,600 days — that’s 10 years! – in care.
Meet some of the outstanding families in Indiana who adopted this year! All month long, we’ve been celebrating National Adoption Month by highlighting adoptees and their families.
When Jacqueline and Jake Cline first considered adopting, they explored all the options – international, private, independent, and public. After a lot of research, they decided on private adoption for their first child. Fast-forward 5 years, and the Clines decided that they were ready to add to their family again. This time, they decided to become licensed foster parents, with the intention of eventually adopting an older child. After fostering several children, they learned of Renesmee, the girl with the sunshine smile.
Reading child summaries can be daunting: they outline every difficult thing that has happened to a foster child, and sometimes it can feel as though the child’s challenges and needs outweigh the strengths and positives. While the summary does include the child’s strengths, likes and dislikes, what they hope for in a family, and so on, reading those words isn’t the same as experiencing the child in person. After all, humans are too complex to be summed up by words on a page.
Remember being 20-something and thinking that you had control of how your life would turn out? So did Sarah! She thought about adoption, but assumed that she’d be married first. Which is why being a mom was nowhere on her radar when she met 8-year-old Liam. Little did Sarah know, that within the next year, life as she knew it would be changed forever!