Foster care and adoption are in a “state of crisis,” in North Carolina. Every month in 2016, the number of children in the state’s foster care system increased significantly, WCNC-TV reported.
“Foster care and adoption are in a state of crisis,” Brian Maness, President and CEO of the Children’s Home Society of North Carolina, said in a statement. “Foster care has been growing at an alarming rate with a shortage of permanent, safe, and loving homes for adoptable children.”
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Maness noted that just five years ago, there were around 8,000 children and teens in North Carolina’s foster care system. Today, that number has risen by more than 25 percent.
The nonprofit, which serves as the state’s largest provider of foster care and adoption services, is working to call attention to this problem in the hope finding homes for the more than 10,500 children and teens in need of adoption.
“The biggest challenges we have with adoption are public awareness and increased resources to find the right family for the child,” Maness said. “Every child that we place for adoption has a set of unique needs.”
He described foster care as a “state of limbo” and a time of great uncertainty for displaced children. Given this, it is by no means a permanent solution.
“Time is an eternity to a child. We don’t want any child to spend one day longer than they absolutely need to in foster care,” Maness said. “Our goal is to help each child achieve permanency with a safe and loving family that will be theirs forever. We want to shorten that period of time as much as possible.”
Learn more about the work the Children’s Home Society is doing to help North Carolina kids find families here.
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