November is Adoption Awareness Month in Illinois
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SPRINGFIELD – Illinois DCFS today released two audio public service announcements (PSAs) told from the standpoint of a child urging individuals to become adoptive parents during Adoption Awareness Month.
Thanks to thousands of adoptive parents across the state, 15,314 children have found permanent homes over the last decade, including 1,559 children in the last year; yet there are nearly 1,400 children of all ages, backgrounds and needs awaiting a loving, permanent family.
“From the moment a child comes into our care we need to start thinking about finding a permanent home if they cannot safely return home. This goal should drive every single decision that is made about the child and their family,” said Illinois DCFS Director George H. Sheldon. “Children should not spend years in foster care. They should not have to bounce from home to home, separated from their siblings, leaving pets, changing schools and worrying about what lies ahead in the next home they are sent to.”
To listen to or download PSAs, click here: Adoption Month PSAs
For more information about how you can be the forever family to a child in need by becoming a foster or adoptive parent, visit www.DCFS.Illinois.gov and click on “Loving Homes.”
Text of Governor Bruce Rauner’s Adoption Month Proclamation:
WHEREAS, all children need and deserve the love, nurturing and sense of security that can only come from being a part of a loving, permanent family; and
WHEREAS, adoption provides a unique joy and a special opportunity for individuals, whether or not they are already parents, married, in a civil union, single or divorced, to open their hearts and their homes for the rest of their lives to children; and
WHEREAS, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services and its nonprofit partners strive to reunite children with their birth families, but when that simply is not possible, they are equally committed to ensuring every child has the safe, loving family they deserve and need to reach their fullest potential; and,
WHEREAS, Illinois has made great strides in recent years in strengthening and improving the child welfare system by reducing the number of children in temporary substitute care, establishing a Bill of Rights for both birth parents and adoptive parents and strengthening licensing requirements for adoption agencies to prevent the exploitation of birth parents, adoptive parents and children; and
WHEREAS, we are committed to improving the child welfare system even further, especially by reducing the length of time children remain in temporary foster care; and,
WHEREAS, there are children awaiting adoption across the state, of all ages, backgrounds and needs; and
THEREFORE, I, Bruce Rauner, Governor of the State of Illinois, do hereby proclaim November 2016 as ADOTPION AWARENESS MONTH in Illinois, and encourage all Illinoisans to express their gratitude to the thousands of families across the state that have opened their homes and their hearts to children, and encourage others to consider joining them in making a life-changing difference for children.
