All the Sweeter: Families Share Their Stories of Adopting from Foster Care

Description

* Since 2000, the number of children adopted from the US foster care system bounced around from a low of 50,000 in 2003 to a high of 57,000 in 2009. In 2016, the latest year for which there is published data, 57,208 foster children found their forever families. * Women in the US continue to put off child-bearing until later ages. In 2015, 11 births of every 1,000 were to women between the ages of 40 and 44. This number has doubled since 1990 when it was 5.5. When some women find they are not able to bear children (fertility decreases after age 30 and rapidly declines around age 37-38), adoption becomes a popular option for fulfilling their dream of parenthood. * As interest in adopting children increases, so do the barriers to private domestic adoptions and inter-country adoptions: fewer than 7000 infants (1% of those born between 1996 and 2002) are placed for adoption by never married mothers in the US each year, and intercountry adoptions have dropped drastically since 1999, from a high of 22,989 in 2004 to a low of 5,647 in 2015. * The cost of private domestic and international adoption continues to rise. The latest range listed by childwelfare.gov, $15,000 to $50,000, places these adoption options out of financial reach for many. Costs for adopting from the US foster care system, in contrast, are minimal.

Jean Minton witnessed many children who lost their parents to AIDS in the early 2000s as a Peace Corps health volunteer in Malawi. This experience opened her eyes to the possibility of adopting. In San Francisco a decade later, she volunteered on the board of directors for Adopt A Special Kid (AASK), a foster-to-adopt agency. AASK's mission captured her heart and cemented her desire to create her own forever family with the help of the foster-to-adopt process. As she considered starting a family, she sought resources to help understand the foster-to-adopt process. She didn't find quite what she wanted so decided to write it herself. Minton earned a Bachelor of Science at Duke University and her MBA at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business. She lives in Sacramento, California, works in healthcare administration, and is a Board Member for Lilliput Children's Services (a similar organization to AASK). She spends much of her time outdoors and with family and friends.