Indiana Department of Child Services working to place over 160 kids in permanent adoptive homes
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — There are currently 164 children listed on Indiana’s “Waiting Children List” who are ready to be adopted into their permanent homes. Adoption advocates say of these children most are ten or older and living in foster care.
Michelle Savieo, the Indiana Department of Child Services Adoption Program Manager said, “The young children are being adopted by their foster parents generally. They’ve been in those homes and those homes say ‘Yes, I am going to adopt.’ The children that are in recruitment generally have some kind of special need and by special needs I don’t mean medical or physical needs I mean some type of need and it may be their trauma history.”
Michelle Savieo manages adoptions from the Indiana Foster Care System. She said the system tries to reunite these children with their family of origin but when that is no longer an option they look to adoption.
“There are two different situations for children who have termination of parental rights,” Savieo said. “One is foster families that have been involved who then go on to say, ‘Yes, I want to make this child a part of my family’ and then we have another set of children that we just don’t have that adoptive home for and those are the children for whom we recruit.”
Adoption provides stability to children who otherwise could go without a permanent role model as they age out of foster care.
“Every child deserves a permanent family and we know from research that the children who don’t get that permanent family and age out of the system to live on their own will face many challenges in adulthood from homelessness to substance abuse to any number of problems that children face,” Savieo said. “If a child is adopted that child then has a safety net of a family that is going to help them throughout their adult life.”
Adopting from foster care is the most affordable way to do it. Many of the costs are covered by the state that families would cover in a private adoption.
DCS also provides post-adoptive services for anyone who adopts that needs help during that transitional period.