November is National Adoption Month in the US. Both the Family Equality Council and the Human Rights Campaign have launched initiatives to help prospective LGBTI parents to realize their dreams
November 3, 2014
Are you living in the US and considering adoption? If so, you’re not alone.
According to a recent National Family Growth Survey, an estimated two million LGB adults are interested in building a family through adoption.
However, the process is not always a smooth one – or even possible – depending on where you reside.
Whereas California allows LGBT adoption, Nebraska prohibits fostering by two unrelated adults – a policy that activists say has been consistently enforced against same-sex couples.
To coincide with National Adoption Month this November, the Family Equality Council (FEC) has just launched its ‘Allies for Adoption’ campaign.
The aim of the campaign is to highlight the obstacles that LGBTI people face in the US in becoming parents.
The FEC says that prospective adopters still face a ‘patchwork’ of different laws, depending on where they live in the US. This remains the case whether they are going through a private agency, adopt a youth in care, or one partner is attempting to adopt the child of the other (step-parent adoption).
‘LGBTQ parents have raised more than six million children across this country, yet we still face hurdles when trying to create and protect our families, including a lack of access to second-parent adoption for many parents,’ said Gabriel Blau, Family Equality Council Executive Director.
‘The patchwork of state adoption laws and policies leave our families vulnerable and fail to take into consideration the best interests of our children.’
‘In addition to protecting our children, we also have a crisis in this country – one that we can fix. We are currently failing the 400,000 kids in the U.S. foster care system. More than 23,000 of these kids age out each year because there is a critical shortage of qualified parents.
‘With a pool of two million potential parents, the LGBTQ community is a deep untapped resource for foster youth. Right now there are five-times as many prospective LGBTQ parents than there are youth in foster care awaiting homes.
‘Until we remove barriers to adoption by LGBTQ people in every state, millions of children won’t get the chance to join a forever family.’
The Family Equality Council will be highlighting the stories of LGBTQ families formed through adoption, and is also throwing its support behind the Every Child Deserves a Family Act. This is a bill that aims to greatly increase access to permanent, loving homes for foster care children by tackling state laws that exclude potential adoptive and foster parents because of their marital status, sexual orientation or gender identity.
In a similar vein, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) is supporting National Adoption Month by highlighting adoption agencies that participate in its All Children – All Families Project.
The aim of its project is to; ‘build the bridge between the children awaiting forever families, the child welfare agencies charged with finding those families, and the LGBT adults who are eager to open their hearts and homes to them.’
Throughout the month, its blog will highlight agencies that have earned the All Children – All Families ‘Seal of Recognition’ for their commitment to supporting and serving LGBT families.
For more information on the Family Equality Campaign, which offers a wealth of information about adoption practices on each state in the US, check the Family Equality Council's National Adoption Month page.
For more information on HRC’s All Children – All Families, click here, while the adoption section of its website is also an excellent resource for LGBTI people seeking to adopt.
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