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Strategies For Recruiting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Foster, Adoptive, and Kinship Families

May 2, 2012 Comments off

Strategies For Recruiting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Foster, Adoptive, and Kinship Families (PDF)
Source: National Resource Center for Adoption, the National Resource Center for Permanency and Family Connections, and the National Resource Center for Recruitment and Retention of Foster and Adoptive Parents at AdoptUSKids

Recruiting and retaining enough qualified foster, adoptive, and kinship parents is a challenge facing nearly every jurisdiction in the United States. States, Tribes, and Territories constantly seek resources and creative strategies for recruiting prospective parents who can meet the needs of children and youth in foster care. They continually look for ways to improve the placement stability for children who need foster care placements and to achieve permanence for children who cannot return to their birth families.

Approximately 408,000 children are currently in foster care in the United States. These children have diverse needs; therefore, child welfare agencies need to have a diverse pool of foster parents who can provide temporary, loving care for the children as they await permanency. Of those 408,000 children in foster care, 107,000 are waiting to be adopted. These children have been in foster care for an average of 37 months. In addition to the children still waiting for a permanent family, nearly 28,000 youth aged out of foster care in 2010 without a permanent family connection. All of these children—and the children who will enter foster care in the years to come—deserve our best efforts to recruit and retain prospective foster and adoptive parents who will provide them with the love, stability, and safety that they need.

For jurisdictions that continue to face challenges in recruiting and retaining enough qualified foster and adoptive parents, looking to previously untapped or underutilized groups of prospective parents—including lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) adults—may be a key step in providing placement stability and permanency to children in foster care.

Categories: adoption and foster care, children and families, GLBT issues, National Resource Center for Adoption
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