Marsh Foundation seeks foster parents

VW independent/submitted information

National Adoption Month is an initiative to increase national awareness and bring attention to the need for permanent families for children and youths in the U.S. foster care system.

Each year, the initiative focuses its outreach and awareness-raising efforts around a new adoption-related theme. This year’s theme, “Teens Need Families, No Matter What,” highlights the importance of identifying well-prepared and committed families for the thousands of teenagers in foster care. Many of these young people are less likely to be adopted, often because of their age, and will too often age out of the system without a healthy, stable support system.

Having permanent family connections provides teenagers with the critical legal and emotional support that all young people need as they transition into adulthood and possibly continue their education, seek employment, start new relationships, and find their way.

Please see the attached proclamation from Governor Kasich declaring November 2017 ‘Adoption Recognition and Recruitment Month.’

National Adoption Month is an initiative sponsored by the Children’s Bureau, in partnership with AdoptUSKids and Child Welfare Information Gateway. Each November, National Adoption Month brings awareness to the needs of children and youths waiting for a “forever family.” This year the theme is building an effective local response system to support prospective families in the initial stages of considering a teen adoption — and the later stages of preparing for and adjusting to it — by offering support services at every step.

Teenagers are often hard to place, but they are as much in need of permanency as younger children and risk exiting the foster care system without any legal or emotional ties. A young person bereft of any family ties lacks the foundational support and compass all youth need as they mature into adulthood.

There are many children, from babies to 18-year-olds, needing homes in Van Wert County and the surrounding areas. Those interested in foster care or adoption may call The Marsh Foundation at 419.238.1695, extension 307, or visit www.marshfoundation.org/helpkids.

The Marsh Foundation is a not-for-profit children’s services agency that provides services in a variety of settings. Services include group homes, family foster care (ages birth-17), an intensive treatment program, adoption and independent living. Located in Van Wert, Ohio, the organization’s group homes are licensed for up to 36 children ages 7-17, offers an on-campus school for grades 2-12 and provides a variety of clinical services to group home residents, foster care children and community members.