Special Children Need Special Parents
AGAPE's special needs adoption services provide opportunities for children whose backgrounds and needs may call for special recruitment to locate adoptive parents. These children are:
• Children in the foster care system who are school age
• Sibling Groups
• Youth in foster care who have resolved their issues and are ready to be part of a family
• Children who have handicapping conditions, which may be medical, psychological, or emotional/behavioral in nature
Toddlers represent a group of children who are not generally readily available for adoption as most are adopted by foster parents who have cared for and bonded with them during the time that decisions were made related to termination of rights of biological parents. Most of the children in AGAPE’s foster homes, whose goal changes from reunification with parent to adoption, are adopted by their foster parents.
AGAPE currently is in need of prospective adoptive parents who will consider teens who have expressed a desire to be connected with a forever family who will guide them through the transition into adulthood with support that will last a lifetime.
AGAPE encourages families who wish to adopt children from the foster care system to search the web sites that feature profiles of children who are waiting. Those are: www.adoptuskids.org; www.adoption.com; and www.parentachild.org. To qualify for one of the over 9,000 children who are waiting across the United States, prospective parents must complete PATH (Parents As Tender Healers) training along with Medication Administration, and CPR/First Aid, and be approved through the home study process. AGAPE offers PATH training, and home studies, assistance in submitting match requests, and post placement assistance for interested families. Contact AGAPE for more information on this service.