National Adoption Month: Why and How We Celebrate
Though November is a time to start celebrating the upcoming holidays, it’s also a time to celebrate adoption and help children find their forever homes. This is an important month as well because concentrated efforts are made to ensure that awareness is raised about adoption, charities that support adoption and adoptees, adoption agencies, and highlight the work being done by adoption professionals around the country.
It’s Really Important Because…
National Adoption Month is important for many reasons. One is that we are recognizing what is being done. We are acknowledging the work done by numerous individuals in our country who day in and out are working for foster children, birth parents, and parents seeking to adopt. Whether they be social workers, not-for-profit employees, government employees, caseworkers, counselors, educators, etc., they are all working to improve adoption in our country, help people offset the costs of adoption, support birth families, and ensure that all children have safe and loving homes.
National Adoption Day is an integral part of National Adoption Month that raises awareness and celebrates adoption. In fact, National Adoption Day is just as recognized as the month itself and sheds light on the issue of children in foster care who need consistency through adoption.
A Month Isn’t Enough….
National Adoption Day is truly inspiring, however, if we want to make the number of children in the foster care system go down, we need to:
– Educate others about adoption
– Help those professionals who are already working in adoption be able to do their job
– Volunteer our services
– Donate when we can
– Share our stories
– Share posts by relevant organizations consistently on social media platforms
– Be an advocate for adoptees and foster children
– Be open and honest to those who seek knowledge about adoption
This article was written by Julia K. Porter and is published for The Gladney Center for Adoption. The full article can be found here.
 Heart Galleries of Texas works across the state to find positive permanency for Texas children.
Each day, more than 6,000 children in the Texas foster care system are waiting to be adopted and find a permanent place to call home. Heart Galleries tell a child’s story through photographs capturing the spirit, individuality, interests, and unique needs of each child. This helps connect children to caring families and community networks. Since 2014, over 400 children featured in the Heart Gallery of Central Texas have been adopted. As a result, the Central Texas adoption rate has been an average of 22% higher than the rest of Texas year-over-year for the past decade.
Heart Galleries of Texas supports expansion of this model throughout the state. By the end of 2023, each region in Texas will have a Heart Gallery. We’re also increasing community awareness about the needs of families formed through adoption, kinship, and guardianship. Our hope is to decrease the number of children raised in systems by increasing support for families.
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