For families thinking about adopting, starting the process can be intimidating.
Between information meetings, paperwork, background checks and training, the dream of adopting a child sounds overwhelming.
But all those steps ultimately make a difference in the end.
“The inconvenience that it takes for you to fill out a form and make a phone call just pales in comparison to the inconvenience of not having a family,” Matt Waller of One Accord for Kids said.
Partnering with Heart Galleries of Texas, a nonprofit whose goal is to help highlight children in the foster care system, the two organizations use photography, pictures and video to let the children tell their own stories to help people learn more about them.
Almost 600 children in Region Nine (which covers 30 counties in West Texas) are in the Texas Foster Care System, with 89 percent placed outside their home county and 61 percent outside of West Texas.
During fiscal year 2024, there were 128 adoptions in Region Nine, with each child spending, on average, more than two years in foster care before adoption. According to the Heart Galleries of Texas, there are more than 6,000 children in Texas in need of adoption, and many will age out of the system.
Waller said each photo is of professional quality and features children who have been in the foster care system longer than most, are looking to keep siblings together or have special needs. The website lets people click on photos and read a short description about the children to help them find a family.
“We work hard for them,” Waller said.
Waller said there is always a need for families in the foster care system, which will keep children in the area and encourage anyone interested in adoption to consider the children featured on the website.
“I’d love to bring them all in, but I can’t,” he said. “A lot of these kids are just kids that just need a mom and a dad, or just one adult, to be kind to them and love them and lovingly pull them in.”
Source: OA Online