2017 Theme: “Teens Need Families, No Matter What”


By Lauren Archambault


families. For over two decades, National Adoption Month has been promoted and celebrated every November in communities across the country. Many national, State, and local agencies as well as foster, kinship care, and adoptive family groups will help spread the word through programs, events, and activities that help raise awareness for thousands of children and youth in foster care who are waiting for permanent, loving families.


N Each year, the initiative focuses its outreach and awareness-


raising efforts around a new adoption-related theme. For the 2017 National Adoption Month initiative, the theme “Teens Need Fami- lies, No Matter What,” highlights the importance of identifying well-prepared and committed families for the thousands of teen- agers in foster care. According to the most recent Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System report, over 110,000 children and youth in foster care are waiting to be adopted and close to 12,500 of them are between the ages of 15 and 17 years old. 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 stable support system. Securing lifelong connections for these teens, legally and emotionally, is an urgent need and critical component of their future achievement and overall well-being.


There are several children and teens in Maine who are cur- rently eligible for adoption. To learn more about adoption in Maine and to see a list of children in Maine waiting for adoption visit: http://www.maine.gov/dhhs/ocfs/cw/adoption/


The Opportunity Alliance (TOA) is a local, private, non-profit social service agency. TOA envisions contributing meaningfully to a community in which families and individuals are thriving and supported as they pursue their aspirations for a better life. Within The Opportunity Alliance, there is a shared belief that positive change is possible and that together, they can help build a stronger community.


ational Adoption Month is an initiative of the Children’s Bu- reau, the first federal agency within the U.S. Government, to focus exclusively on improving the lives of children and


One TOA program which supports positive change is their


Therapeutic Foster Care (TFC) program. The following is just one example of a youth involved in Maine’s foster care system getting support from a local therapeutic foster care agency. TOA is not an adoption agency, but TOA does partner with its foster parents to support youth in their homes, and sometimes, foster parents choose to adopt the children they’ve had placed in their homes.


Elizabeth became a therapeutic foster parent with The


Opportunity Alliance (TOA) in 2013. She had a teenage boy, who had previously been involved with Maine’s juvenile justice system, placed in her home by Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). The teenager was in TOA’s thera- peutic foster care program for two years. A TOA case manager visited him at home twice monthly, and more often when the family needed extra support. Elizabeth liked that the TOA team addressed issues and that she could talk openly with her team. She felt that she and the teenager placed in her home, could be honest with each other and the team when everyone dis- cussed his treatment and his progress. Elizabeth felt the team- approach helped her and the teen to figure “things” out. He is the first teenager that Elizabeth parented and she was thankful for the insight from team members. She liked that the team at TOA knew the teen’s history and that they were able to support them both and come up with solutions to the issues they were facing in their parent-child relationship, as well as issues he was working through in his individual treatment. TOA staff also sup- ported him during visits with his mother and siblings. He saw


14 ELM Maine - November/December 2017


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