May is National Foster Care Month, a month set aside to acknowledge foster parents, family members, volunteers, mentors, policymakers, child welfare professionals, and other members of our community who help children in foster care find safe families who will care for them and help them prepare for adulthood and, if necessary provide permanent adoptive homes. During National Foster Care Month, Americans are asked to renew our commitment to ensuring a bright future for the approximately hundreds of thousands of children and youth in foster care, and we celebrate all those who make a meaningful difference in their lives.
History of Foster Care Month
- It all began in 1988, when Senator Strom Thurmond, with the encouragement from the National Foster Care Association, introduced a resolution to proclaim May as National Foster Care Month.
- In 1988, President Reagan issued the first presidential proclamation that established May as National Foster Care Month.
- Arizona Governor Jan Brewer issued a proclamation declaring May as Foster Care Awareness Month in Arizona in 2012.
In its initial years, Foster Care Month focused on celebrating foster families and the work they did to improve the lives on children in their communities. In more recent years, Foster Care Month has been more focused on identifying and meeting the needs of older youth who are at risk of aging out of foster care.
Each year, National Foster Care Month has a new theme. 2014’s theme is “Building Blocks Toward Permanent Families.” According to the National Foster Care Month Association, “The campaign raises awareness about the urgent needs of these young people and encourages citizens from every walk of life to get involved – as foster or adoptive parents, volunteers, mentors, employers or in other ways. We call on all Americans to join us in helping to change a lifetime of a child or youth in foster care. No matter who you are or how much time you have to give, you can help create permanent, lifelong connections for these children and youth.”
Current Needs and Trends
According to the Child Welfare League of America, approximately 588,000 children currently reside in some form of foster care. Placements have dramatically increased over the past 10 years. In Arizona, the number of children who are currently in care is approximately 16,000. Because the number of children entering foster care is growing so rapidly, there aren’t enough foster families to take them in, nor is there enough money to provide the things every foster child needs. There also aren’t enough people to help them, mentor them, or to simply cheer them up and give them hope for the future.
What Can YOU Do This Month?
National Foster Care Month has three goals:
- Raising awareness of foster care issues.
- Motivating others to help foster care and foster children succeed.
- Create a positive framework that maintains the progress made during the month of May throughout the rest of the year.
Everyone who wants to help with efforts to improve the lives of foster children can contribute to this effort by supporting permanence through reunification with birth families who have the supports and commitment to keep children safe, supporting the efforts of kinship and foster families through church ministries or community advocacy groups like the Arizona Association of Foster and Adoptive Parents (www.azafap.org), or finding out what is entailed in becoming a mentor, guardian, kinship foster parent, community foster parent, or adoptive family. Agape hosts orientations every Tuesday evenings at its campus in south Phoenix, and the Maricopa County KIDS Consortium hosts orientations throughout the valley several times each week. A calendar of upcoming KIDS orientations is available at http://www.azkidsconsortium.com/forms/orientations.pdf.
