Yesterday, the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Senate Co-Chair Senator Mary Landrieu & former CCAI Foster Youth Intern Harold “RJ” Sloke spoke to Fox News Live to raise awareness about the needs of children in foster care without families. Click on the image below to watch the full interview!
CCAI’s Angels in Adoption™ Program provides Members of Congress the opportunity to honor an individual, couple, or organization from their district that have made an extraordinary contribution on behalf of children in need of homes. The Angels in Adoption™ travel to Washington D.C. to participate in three days of events all designed to train them to use their personal experiences to affect change and to celebrate their hard work and dedication to adoption and foster care issues. The events include the Adoption and Foster Care Advocacy Fair, tours of DC and networking events, an award ceremony, legislative seminar and an opportunity to visit Congressional offices to share how adoption has affected their lives.
This year, on September 12, CCAI will recognize actress Katherine Heigl, singer-songwriter Josh Kelley, and PEOPLE Magazine as the 2012 National Angels in Adoption™ for their dedication and commitment to adoption and foster care issues. They will be honored, along with local Angels in Adoption™ selected by 143 Members of Congress, at CCAI’s 14th annual awards gala in Washington, DC.
Over the next couple of days, we will be highlighting some of our Angels in Adoption Angels in Adoption™. Today, we’d like to introduce you to Angels Gary and Janice Meyer.
In 1988, Janice and Gary Meyer decided to provide a warm, nurturing, loving home to children in need and became foster and adoptive parents. To date, they have adopted seven children and are in the process of finalizing the adoption their eighth child.
All of the children the Meyers have adopted have extreme behavioral, mental health, and medical needs. When their son Austin was first placed with Janice and Gary, they were not sure if he had any vision. They immediately secured the needed services, which necessitated numerous 350-mile round trips from Salina to Kansas City so that Austin could receive the best care. The results of his testing were conclusive: Austin lacked all vision.
Today, Austin walks with a cane to assist with mobility and Janice has taught him braille. Despite the continued need for care, Janice and Gary never wavered in the process to adopt Austin. The same is true of their son Leon, who is blind, deaf, and confined to a wheelchair, with a severe brain injury resulting from shaken baby syndrome. Every three months, the Meyers take Leon to Wichita to see his neurologist and he is monitored for seizure activity and receives treatment to stimulate muscle dexterity. His adoption was finalized on July 30.
The Meyers’ ability to love and care for all of their children unconditionally and constantly reaffirm their commitment to them makes them true Angels in Adoption.
CCAI’s Angels in Adoption™ Program provides Members of Congress the opportunity to honor an individual, couple, or organization from their district that have made an extraordinary contribution on behalf of children in need of homes. The Angels in Adoption™ travel to Washington D.C. to participate in three days of events all designed to train them to use their personal experiences to affect change and to celebrate their hard work and dedication to adoption and foster care issues. The events include the Adoption and Foster Care Advocacy Fair, tours of DC and networking events, an award ceremony, legislative seminar and an opportunity to visit Congressional offices to share how adoption has affected their lives.
This year, on September 12, CCAI will recognize actress Katherine Heigl, singer-songwriter Josh Kelley, and PEOPLE Magazine as the 2012 National Angels in Adoption™ for their dedication and commitment to adoption and foster care issues. They will be honored, along with local Angels in Adoption™ selected by 143 Members of Congress, at CCAI’s 14th annual awards gala in Washington, DC.
Over the next couple of days, we will be highlighting some of our Angels in Adoption Angels in Adoption™. Today, we’d like to introduce you to Angel Amy Sharp.
Amy Sharp has lived in North Carolina her entire life and is dedicated to children in need of a nurturing and stable home. She and her husband Rod have three children: their biological daughter, Erin; Anna, who was adopted from Korea; and Maggie, who was adopted in the United States. Erin has adopted two children from Uganda, after serving in an orphanage there in 2007, so Amy is an adoptive grandmother as well.
In addition to being an adoptive mother, Amy is also a dedicated foster parent for the state of North Carolina and has been a foster mother for over 25 years, providing a home and loving care for close to 60 babies. She contributes to her community through teaching Sunday school, speaking at a camp for girls, and being involved in the music ministry at her church.
CCAI’s Angels in Adoption™ Program provides Members of Congress the opportunity to honor an individual, couple, or organization from their district that have made an extraordinary contribution on behalf of children in need of homes. The Angels in Adoption™ travel to Washington D.C. to participate in three days of events all designed to train them to use their personal experiences to affect change and to celebrate their hard work and dedication to adoption and foster care issues. The events include the Adoption and Foster Care Advocacy Fair, tours of DC and networking events, an award ceremony, legislative seminar and an opportunity to visit Congressional offices to share how adoption has affected their lives.
This year, on September 12, CCAI will recognize actress Katherine Heigl, singer-songwriter Josh Kelley, and PEOPLE Magazine as the 2012 National Angels in Adoption™ for their dedication and commitment to adoption and foster care issues. They will be honored, along with local Angels in Adoption™ selected by 143 Members of Congress, at CCAI’s 14th annual awards gala in Washington, DC.
Over the next couple of days, we will be highlighting some of our Angels in Adoption Angels in Adoption™. Today, we’d like to introduce you to Angels Darriel and Jessica Steedman.
Many people experience “empty nest” syndrome, but Darriel and Jessica Steedman, along with their youngest son Holden, decided instead to fill up their nest. Already registered foster parents, they had helped many children as their four older children grew up and moved out on their own.
In 2005, Darriel and Jessica brought home Stevie, Holden’s new little sister. Soon the Steedmans made room for baby twin brothers, Joseph and Jesse, who shared a biological mother with Stevie. In 2007, they adopted another new baby, Cody, followed, in 2012, by two-year-old Bella.
Holden, who had once been the youngest of five children, is now a loving older brother to five little siblings. As Jessica says, “We never intended to adopt so many, but we just fell in love with each and every one of them. It’s a running joke – we say we’re done, but our friends don’t believe us!”
Darriel, a Navy veteran who spent two years as a child at the Lena Pope Home in Texas, feels a strong urge to “give back,” along with his wife, Jessica, and to provide a safe and loving home for their children.
CCAI is conducting a survey to learn more about the experiences of individuals who grow up in foster care and people who grow up in family care. Please take 3 minutes to complete the survey; the results will be used in a report that the Foster Youth Interns will present at a Congressional Briefing on July 31!
Survey:
CCAI is excited to serve as the Secretariat for the Executive Committee of the Adoption Tax Credit Working Group (ATCWG). Save the Adoption Tax Credit, a national collaboration of 100 organizations that have united to support the cause of adoption, is an effort of the ATCWG. These are the other organizations on the Executive Committee with whom we are working closely:
The Adoption Tax Credit has existed since 2003 and has made adoption a more viable option for many parents who might not otherwise have been able to afford adoption, allowing them to provide children with loving, permanent families. Unfortunately it is due to “sunset” in its current form at the end of this year unless Congress and the Administration act.
The Adoption Tax Credit Working Group’s goals are to have an adoption tax credit that is:
More than 100,000 children are currently in the U.S. foster care system awaiting forever homes. There are a growing number of children worldwide who are living in institutions, on the streets or in other situations outside of the care of a loving family.
The work of the adoption tax credit is not done.
To learn more about the effort to save the “A.T.C.” and to see the full list of the Adoption Tax Credit Working Group members, go to www.adoptiontaxcredit.org.
Or check out their Facebook page at www.facebook.com/AdoptionTaxCredit.
Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute 