National Adoption Month seeks to increase awareness of adoption issues, bring attention to the need for adoptive families for older youth in foster care, and emphasize the value of youth engagement.
Each year, awareness-raising efforts are focused on an adoption-related theme to help support professionals working each day to find permanent families for children and youth in foster care in their community. This year’s National Adoption Month theme is “Conversations Matter.” Promoting youth engagement can start with a simple conversation. Listen to what the young person has to say, what their goals are, and how they feel about adoption. Create an environment where they can be honest and ask questions, and feel they have a say in making decisions about their life.
“At CHS, we work with children and families to assist them in navigating through and healing from the traumatic events that have led to them being placed in the child welfare system,” said Shannon Enoch, CHS Statewide Program Director. “Our first goal is always to create an environment where we are seeking to hear and understand a child’s story and support our families’ ability to hear and hold children’s stories while creating a place of healing and acceptance.”
Children’s Home Society strives for a permanent, safe, and loving family situation for children through reunification with their families of origin, and when that is not possible, through adoption.
“We view adoption as a lifetime commitment, and we commit to our children and families to support them through the entirety of their adoption journey,” Enoch added.
Children’s Home Society has celebrated more than 16,000 adoptions since 1902. With over 12,000 children in foster care in our state, and 450-plus aging out each year, we continue to work tirelessly in our mission to promote the right of every child to a permanent, safe, and loving family. Today, CHS continues to create new families as well as to provide families with the support and resources they need to be healthy, stay together, grow stronger, and thrive.
For more information about Children’s Home Society, preserving family well-being, becoming a foster or adoptive parent, volunteering, or providing financial support, please call 800-632-1400 or visit www.chsnc.org. Children’s Home Society offers a network of services and support throughout North Carolina to help establish and sustain healthy, loving relationships in every family. For 120 years, Children’s Home Society has provided a broad spectrum of programs and services including adoption, foster care, parenting education, family preservation, and teen responsibility.
