Give a Child a Home for the New Year

The Home for Little Wanderers is offering an information session in January for people interested in learning about becoming adoptive or foster parents. People interested in learning about becoming foster or adoptive parents can attend a free, virtual 90-minute information session on January 11, 2021 at 7PM eastern time. Currently in Massachusetts, there are over 8,600 children in state foster care and over 3,400 children with a goal of adoption. Over 1,200 of these children have no identified adoption resource such as a relative or foster parent.

“The child welfare system is no place for a child to grow up. Children need a warm home full of love and nurturing,” said Lesli Suggs, CEO of The Home for Little Wanderers. “Children need to know that they have a permanent adult in their life to take care of them and to help them grow into well-rounded adults. Children who grow up in the system without a permanent family suffer challenges throughout their lives well into adulthood. The love and support of a family can make all the difference.”

The Massachusetts Task Force on Youth Aging Out of Foster Care found that of kids who age out of the foster care system without a permanent home:

• 37% struggled with homelessness.
• Nearly 60 percent of young men had been convicted of a crime.
• 75 percent of women and 33 percent of men receive government benefits to meet basic needs.
• 50 percent of all youth who aged out were involved in substance use.
• 17 percent of the females became pregnant in the first few years after aging out.

The Home’s adoption and foster programs provide all the necessary training, licensing, matching, and supportive services for families to adopt or foster. The Home encourages adoptive and foster parents from all races, ethnicities, sexual orientations, gender identities, socio-economic backgrounds and religions. Adoptive or foster parents can be couples or single individuals. Children come from a variety of backgrounds and many have experienced multiple types of maltreatment such as neglect or abuse.

Participants will learn about Intensive Foster Care and the steps to becoming a foster or adoptive parent, including how to participate in the Massachusetts Approach to Partnerships in Parenting (MAPP) Training certification, which is required for adoption, and how to become a licensed foster parent. MAPP training has also been scheduled in February. Details are available at www.thehome.org/adoption.

Registration is not required. Attendees can join via Zoom at https://thehome.zoom.us/j/94776748339.

To learn more about becoming an adoptive or foster parent, visit www.thehome.org/adoption or contact The Home at (617)-288-7450, [email protected], or [email protected].

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About The Home for Little Wanderers

For more than 200 years, The Home for Little Wanderers has earned a reputation for doing whatever it takes to strengthen vulnerable families and keep children safe in their communities, even when they don’t have family support. Serving children and youth from birth to 22, The Home makes a positive impact on over 15,000 lives across Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and New York each year through a network of behavioral health services, therapeutic residential treatment centers, special education, adoption, and foster care. We never give up on children. And we don’t let children give up on themselves. For more information, visit www.thehome.org or follow The Home on Twitter @thehomeorg.

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