Foster Care/Adoption

October, 26th, 2016 started off like any other Monday for my friend Angela. She woke up, made breakfast, saw her husband off to work and got her four kids to their Baton Rouge schools. She waited as the small children she babysits everyday were dropped off to her home. But when she checked Facebook that day, something was different. As Angela was scrolling through her news feed, she saw a post from a friend of a friend – someone Angela didn’t even know – pop up in her news feed. The photo had been posted by Children’s Hope International, an adoption agency that helps orphans from China, Bulgaria, Cambodia and India find their forever homes. The photo pictured a little orphaned...

We all have dreams about how our lives will play out and what our future family will look like. When my husband and I unexpectedly had a medically fragile child, life suddenly didn't look like anything we dreamed about. We faced infertility and miscarriages, and we were no longer sure what our family journey would be. But we were lead to adoption. When we learned our path for a Russian adoption had been shut down by the government, once again we were set adrift. We decided to let the journey lead us instead of try to make so many decisions on the front end. So we signed up to take foster and adoption certification classes through the state. In the...

  I truly believe that most people mean well, I really do. Unfortunately, too many people speak before they think. Today, a stranger at the grocery store (grocery stores make people BOLD, y'all!) was talking with my sweet baby and telling me how beautiful she is (because she is, of course!). But then as we walked away, she asked, "Where did you get her?" I'm sorry, did you just ask where I got my CHILD, as if asking about the cute pair of shoes I was wearing? She is not an object to be bought, traded or sold. She is a tiny person with a right to privacy. While I can understand that you are curious, you have no right to our personal...

  Your friend is having a baby?! Yippee! Time to celebrate! Throw a baby shower, pin and share cute nursery decorations, set up the meal train! But what do you do when your friend decides to foster and brings home multiple babies in a year? Or fosters older children? You want to help, but how to go about doing so isn't always clear. Here are some practical tips for supporting the foster families in your life! Immediate support * Often times, there is little to no prep time when getting a new foster placement. Here are a few things a family might need: - clothes in the child's size - help rearranging bedrooms - toys - carseat - bottles, diapers, formula - portable crib - suitcases for moving clothes...

Every child deserves to be in a loving, stable and safe environment. When children are in foster care, a basic standard of care has been compromised, yet reunification of the children with their parents is always the first and primary goal. For foster parents, it can sometimes be difficult to navigate the waters of interacting with parents, especially knowing the child's history. These are the only parents the child has ever known, and if at all possible, these parents will be able to raise their children to thrive. So how can foster parents help to make the adult relationships as healthy as possible for the children involved? Here are a few ideas!   1. Love the Child Duh. Love the child is...