Hoping for Zero

On August 31, 2023 in Texas alone, there were somewhere between 4,711 and 8,005 children in our foster care system who had their parental rights terminated by the courts - legal orphans - and were needing to be adopted! Why the discrepancy? Well that will have to be a conversation for another time! For now, you are welcome to explore the numbers in the DFPS Data Book here. 

I would call either one of those numbers an orphan crisis in our own backyard! One half of those children stuck in our foster care system are between the ages of 9 and 17 years of age. I want you to think of the last few people you have heard talk about adoption. How many of them told you that they are dreaming of bringing home a sixteen year old to start their parenting journey just as the child is learning how to become an adult? Statistics would tell us not many of you would be able to say that your friend’s adoption story sounded like that! Most of the time when people begin an adoption journey, it is with the dream of bringing home the precious baby to raise from the beginning! Parents want to be there from the first possible moment and love, teach, protect, and empower their children as they grow into adulthood. So where does that leave our thousands of children 9 and above lingering in the Texas foster care system waiting for the adoptive family they are dreaming of? It leaves them waiting….

We at Addy’s Hope strongly believe that the Texas foster care system should be emptied of waiting children - children who are legally free for adoption but linger in the system simply because of their age, medical needs, or being part of a large sibling group. In fact, several years ago, we coined the phrase “Hoping for Zero” to remind those in our circles that emptying the Texas foster system of waiting children is completely possible!

Dr. Karyn Purvis and her work at TCU these past 30 years has been instrumental in helping us understand the impact of trauma on the brain and behavior. One of our favorite Dr. Purvis quotes is, “I’ve never once met a child who can’t come to deep levels of healing if you understand what they need.” We at Addy’s Hope believe as Dr. Purvis does that every child in Texas has the ability to become all God created them to be no matter what their past has been! 

Unfortunately not all who work within our system feel this way. I will never forget one of the first trainings I went to after we opened our They Wait program. I sat there listening to the man who basically trained all adoption workers in the Texas system at that time make the statement that his organization did not encourage families to look at the photo listings because often the children on the photo listings had more severe “issues” and were too hard to support in adoption. So he just told his families not to look. There was another man in the training who was an executive for another large organization in Texas who jumped in and agreed saying his organization had the same philosophy. I sat there briefly in disbelief knowing full well that Addy’s Hope was going to not only allow our families to look at those photo listings, but would be encouraging our families to look and consider these older children! My shock wore off just enough for me to speak up in that room of workers being trained to share with those two men what a shame it was that they would dismiss any child as “unadoptable”! I assured those men that my organization would be working tirelessly to recruit, train, and support families for every one of those children on those photolistings because no matter what their circumstances or behaviors, they each deserved a family to call their own! I assured them that Addy’s Hope would happily support any family willing to step up and provide the healing home that any of those children needed! 

That fateful day of training was 13 years ago. We have placed over 200 children from DFPS into permanent, adoptive homes since that day! Seventy percent of those children have been 6 years of age and older with 23% being 10 years and older. We believe in keeping siblings together: 63% of our placements put siblings in the same home (often reuniting siblings who had been separated in their foster placements prior to being placed in our homes) and 49% of our sibling groups placed included 3,  4, or 5 children! 

With those numbers, we have earned the right to stand with Dr. Purvis and say that there is no child that cannot be brought to absolute and complete healing when given the right environment!

If you are interested in learning if your home might be the right environment to bring healing to one (or two or five) of the thousands of children still waiting in Texas, let us know by reaching out here! Together, we really can empty the Texas system of waiting children! #HopingForZero