A Personal Story and Plea

It took 54 months (only slightly more than the national average, believe it or not) but today, my foster son officially became my adoptive son.  While this may seem like the perfect personal announcement for Facebook, I want to express my professional gratitude to CEO Danielle Ellman and all my amazingly supportive coworkers at Commonpoint Queens for encouraging me to embark on this journey and supporting all the additional time the foster care system – hours of annual trainings, birth parent visits, monthly home visits, quarterly court hearings, biannual family planning meetings - requires of foster parents, as well as the challenges inherent in parenting, and particularly single parenting.  I was fortunate to spend my last year with CEO Leticia Galyeon and the wonderful people at Seneca Family of Agencies who extended that support.  I was truly blessed to meet some exceptional, dedicated individuals at RisingGround, including one of the most exceptional social workers and human beings I have ever met: Tamara Chalvire.  There are currently almost 500,000 children in the foster care systems throughout the United States and more than 20% of them are currently eligible for adoption.  Leaders, please do everything you can to ensure your policies and your approach to the work not only support parents, especially single parents, but even extend support those employees who want to become foster parents!