CCAI’s 2012 Foster Youth Interns (FYI) had a message to deliver to Capitol Hill: Here us now! The group of 13 former foster youth felt that for too long their voices had gone unheard, so on July 31, they released their Congressional Report and delivered an accompanying presentation to a captive audience which included Members of Congress, Hill staffers and representatives from several child welfare organizations.
For those who were unable to attend, you can watch the full briefing here.
La Familia de Matthews
By Melanie Matthews
The article was originally published in the September 2012 Issue of Adoption Today. Melanie and Jim Matthews are two of CCAI’s 2012 Angels in Adoption.
The Call:
“We have four kids for you, and we need to know tonight if you are interested, so please let us know in the next hour.” This is it! Our jaws are dropped, there are hugs, kisses and tears. We don’t know if we should stand, sit or call everyone we know. We are staring at each other, hearts racing, hands trembling. We are speechless, and there are no words. Within five minutes, we find our voice, one word, we call our agency back, “Yes!” our word is yes. Praise to God, yes!
Our Prayer:
We were married in December 2000, and that is when our adoption journey started. While discussing our future family, adoption was always a part of our vocabulary. We always knew we wanted a large family and felt in our hearts that all of our children would be adopted. In 2006, we started our paperwork for the adoption process. We were initially approved for one infant, and waited for our referral from Colombia. We were put on a wait list, so we waited, patiently, for years.
Our time was filled with work and hobbies. Running marathons, starting a photography business, finishing nursing school, running the youth ministry at the church, and learning Spanish occupied our wait time. As our wait time was being increased every year, we started talking again about the large family we had wanted. We started asking each other why we are on a wait list for one child, when there are groups of children who need a home? We started praying about a sibling group, praying if that is what was in store for us. We prayed that God would keep them safe, warm and loved. In November 2009, we started updating our paperwork, sure that this is what God had been planning for us. Our call was received in July 2010. It would be only three more months until we met our children!
November 2:
November 2 is our family’s “special day,” as we like to call it. This is the day we met our children for the first time. We met in a room with the social worker, lawyer and translator. We couldn’t concentrate, we could hear our kids in the other room during our meeting, laughing and playing. They were just one room away. Our tears of joy were flowing before we even saw them! That day we met our children 8-year-old Derly, 6-year-old Estefania, 5-year-old Jesus and 2-year-old Prospero. Our next four weeks were spent in Colombia, bonding and connecting as a new family, we could not wait to bring them to their new home.
Parents:
Bringing the kids home and watching them experience new things was such a joy. Moving from Colombia to Minnesota was a culture change. Experiencing cold on their faces, and playing in the snow was new and amazing to them. Every day is an adventure in itself. Elevators, escalators, eating at McDonalds and swimming were all new to them. Just learning a new language from both sides has been a great and sometimes funny way of getting to know each other. Favorite colors, foods and stories, all the wonderful small details we get to learn from each other. We have had a fantastic year, with so much support from our family and friends. This is God’s plan and design for all of our lives.
One more:
In February 2011, just three months after being home, something did not feel right. I was looking at our family while cooking dinner. I said to my husband, “We are not all here, we are missing something.” After a night of prayer, we were felt led to write a letter to our agency which stated: “If our children have any more siblings, we would like to adopt them as well. We strongly believe in keeping siblings together.”
Only a month after sending this letter, we received a call from our agency. “Your children have an older brother and Colombia is requesting you consider adopting him.” Meet Jhon, age 10. Our call back “Yes, of course, yes.” In June, we traveled to Colombia to meet Jhon for the first time and reunite him with his siblings.
God’s Plan:
God works in mysterious ways. Our family started 10 years ago when we began thinking of adoption. At the time we changed our paperwork from a single child to a sibling group, all of our children had been born and were placed in the adoption agency, waiting, for us to bring them home.
If you are thinking of adoption and have any questions you can connect with us through our blog at www.matthewsadoption.blogspot.com.
Melanie Matthews has been married to her husband, Jim, for 11 years. The couple has been blessed with five children, 11-year-old Jhon, 9-year-old Derly, 7-year-old Estefania, 5-year-old Jesus and 2-year-old Prospero. The couple lives in Minnesota and Jim is a youth pastor and Melanie is a registered nurse. Melanie also enjoys photography on the side. Jim and Melanie always knew they wanted to adopt from the beginning of their marriage. Two trips to Colombia later, their journey to their children and becoming a forever family are complete. To read more about their journey, visit www.matthewsadoption.blogspot.com.
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’s Foster Youth Interns (FYI) have released a report, “Hear Me Now.” In it, the former foster youth share their personal experiences as well as policy recommendations to address child welfare issues, including:
In past years, these reports have generated both local and national attention to the critical issues facing the 408,000 children currently in the United States foster care system.
“It has been my experience that the voices of foster care alumni are the ones we should be listening to more than any others. When they speak, things actually stand a chance of getting better. Not because their stories remind us of how far we have yet to go, but because their ingenuity and passion for making a difference show us just how far we can reach,” said Kathleen Strottman, Executive Director of CCAI. “Each and every day, the FYIs use their voice on behalf of those who do not have one. They reveal their scars in the hope that others won’t have these same wounds inflicted upon them.”
Since its inception in 2003, over 100 former foster youth from across the country have produced four legislative reports and have hosted nine Congressional briefings. Over 100 specific policy recommendations have been presented to federal policymakers, and at least three have been enacted into law.
Please click here to read the report:
http://ccainstitute.org/images/stories/foster/fyi/final%20fyi%20report%20high%20resolution.pdf
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 