National Adoption Awareness Month

November is National Adoption Awareness Month.  Now some people automatically get all mushy and hearts start flying in the air and violin music and all that.  Others are more quiet about it, mostly meditating on ethics surrounding adoption as a whole.  Like most things in life I'm a middle-of-the-road gal.

I care about adoption happening the right way especially through foster care since that is my arena of interest.  I also get sentimental as November of last year was when Tigger was finalized and officially a member of the family--my family.

The truth of the matter is, foster care and adoption from foster care should be a topic of interest as it impacts our society.  Whether or not children in foster care reunite with family or are adopted into a new family, they are our kids.  We interact with them, they go to school with our kids, they are part of our future for a better place. It's high time we got involved in making sure ALL of the children in our community have a good chance at life for a future.

What are some ideas that we can do?

• be more mindful/helpful with the neighbors....especially the neighbors you think are struggling
• be mentors to your children's friends
• be mentors in the community
• Get involved with the department of family services in one way or another (donating, mentorship, contemplate being a foster home or an adoptive home if you feel that it is something you can do no matter how little (or not) gratitude/give back there is
• support families that have adopted from foster care
• be respite homes
• offer services or financial support if a family needs to pay for therapeutic services for their child 

Adoption is not all roses and butterflies, however, with AWARENESS, my hope is that we all can help our kids, our community find their place....a better place in this world.