2022 National Adoption Month Highlights
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.
A Change of Trajectory
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!
Being Open to Uncertainty: One Millennial Family’s Story on Taking A Chance on a Teen
When you think of millennials, what comes to mind? Maybe college students in coffee shops, “digital natives,” or younger people who have a renewed interest in collecting “vintage” items like Polaroid cameras, vinyl records, or needlepoint. But how many of you think of millennials as adoptive parents…to teens? Maricela and Cody — in their 20s themselves — share why they decided to adopt a teen from foster care, and offer some advice for other families.
2021 National Adoption Month Highlights
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.
As Fate Would Have It: How A Simple Joke Turned Into a Forever Family
When 14-year-old Hannah found out about a boy in school who needed a family, she was eager to tell her parents Todd and Tammy (who happened to be foster parents) all about him. As fate would have it, Tammy was a substitute teacher at the time, and she often had Nayvin in class. In fact, the two had already clicked. Nayvin would even jokingly ask Tammy to adopt him. What started out as a silly joke, though, soon turned into reality.
A Change of Heart That Changed A Life
When Megan and Jeremy first became foster parents, they set some very firm boundaries: Nobody over the age of 10, and ideally someone younger than their biological son. Fast forward to November 2020, when their family finalized their first adoption — of a teenage girl! Their unexpected change of heart changed the life of an Indiana teenager in foster care.
2020 National Adoption Month Highlights
All month long, we’ve been celebrating families who adopted from foster care this year. Families who are able to provide a loving, stable home to older children and teens are especially needed in Indiana.
Bringing Siblings Back Together
As a fifth-grade teacher, Melissa Lafever always kept a close eye on a student named Gina, whose mother had passed away. Melissa knew Gina was being placed into foster care as a result — but what Melissa didn’t know was how much she would be impacted by the news. Melissa and her husband Shawn started the adoption process and welcomed Gina into their family in 2019. This year, the Lafever family also welcomed Gina’s brother Dean into the family too.
Why We Focus on Youth Voices
While we focus on celebrating adoption during National Adoption Month, it’s also important to hear what young people in foster care are saying about what they need in a family, what they want, what’s most important to them. Encouraging youth to have a voice in their permanency planning is empowering and keeps the focus where it should be: on what is in the child’s best interests.
Celebrating National Adoption Month in a Pandemic
Here we are in November, National Adoption Month, with virtual adoptions and limited celebrations scheduled. But, we are still celebrating! We want to celebrate all adoptions during National Adoption Month — private, international, domestic, adoptions from foster care — and honor the adoptive families and the adoptees, even if life does seem topsy-turvy these days. So, what are some ways we can celebrate in 2020, the most unusual of years in recent memory?