Answering the Call: A National Campaign To Encourage Adoption of Children From Foster Care (NAPSA)—Every child deserves a homeand a loving family. Unfortunately for too many children in the foster care system, a supportive, permanent homeis not an immediate reality. Today, there are 532,000 children in the foster care system and 129,000 are waiting to be adopted. Of those, 64 percent are over age five with the average age being eight yearsor older. U. 8. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Seceretary Tommy Thompson recently announced a new national public service advertising (PSA) campaign to promote adoption of children from foster care. These PSAs are part of HHS’five-year, multifaceted initiative called The Collaboration to AdoptUSKids, which focuses on recruiting new adoptive families for children in foster care waiting to be adopted. “All children need loving permanent families not only while growing up but throughout their entire lifetimes,” said Wade F. Horn, Ph.D., Assistant Secretary for Children and Families at HHS. “We hope that people, through this campaign, will be touched, inspired and motivated to consider adopting a child from foster care.” The Issue Although there are thousands of suitable parents out there, many do not engage in the adoptive process for fear that they are not up to the task of parenting an adopted child, or because they think the adoption process is costly and unmanageable. The truth is that there is usually little or no cost to adopt children from the foster care system, and parents can receive support in the ‘ei y ) form of training, adoption subsidies and Medicaid. The Campaign The new national PSA campaign, Answering the Call: A National Campaign to Encourage Adoption of Children From Foster Care, was developed by HHS’ Administration for Children and Families in partnership with the Advertising Council, volunteer ad agency kirshenbaum bond+partners, and the Collaboration to AdoptUSKids, a multi-faceted, five-year, federally funded project, whose goal is to increase the recruitment and retention of foster and adoptive families for children in the foster care system. The PSAs, which will run in advertising time and space donated by the media, issue a callto-action for family-oriented Americans to consider adopting a child from foster care. For more information about the campaign or to learn about adopting a child from foster care, visit www.adoptuskids.org.
