Chapman, John. Cleveland Plain Dealer, Nov. 28, 2013
Did you need a parent after age 18?
My five adopted sons over the age of 18 did, and we anticipate their younger, 16-year-old adopted brother will, also.
Similarly, foster children, who age out of the child protection system at age 18, need parental help. Foster children, just like my sons, need someone to help them deal honestly with traumatic emotional issues resulting from their abusive birth homes, with girl/boyfriend issues without the violence they witnessed prior to entering the child protection system, and with the frustrating bureaucratic issues related to Medicaid, college, job, lease and loan applications, bank accounts and related debit, credit and prepaid cards, income tax returns, and school Individual Education Plans that can drive even seasoned adults to anger.
Plus, as my 18-year-old son Monty said, “I need someone to come home to.”
Monty states a need for someone to guide him when he “screws up.” He wants someone to empathetically listen to him vent about the “irritations of life.” And, Monty desires someone to help him learn how to drive once he gets to a level of responsibility where he will stop at every stop sign or not text while driving.
Thankfully, he wants me to help him with his wishes. But, unfortunately, most aging-out foster children do not have someone to assist them with these basic needs. Instead, they feel alone.
Can we help foster kids like Candice Woodland, highlighted in Phillip Morris’ Nov. 24 Plain Dealer column, not feel abandoned? Can our community, through a public, private and philanthropic partnership, develop an innovative program to help kids aging out of its child protection system?
This type of partnership worked once before. Led by the United Way Community Vision Council on Strong Families=Successful Children, Cuyahoga County, companies like Eaton and funders like the Gund Foundation and Cleveland Foundation came together to create the Adopt Cuyahoga’s Kids Initiative in 2003. This initiative, for which I served as an oversight co-chair, proved instrumental in helping reduce the number of children available for adoption in Cuyahoga County from 1,700 in 2004 to 610 in July 2012.
The Adopt Cuyahoga’s Kids Initiative, led by Adoption Network Cleveland (ANC), won many national awards for adoption innovations. But, it left unanswered the question of what might happen to children that could not or did not want to be adopted prior to emancipation; young people ill-prepared for the intellectual, emotional and financial responsibilities of adulthood like Candice Woodland.
We knew that this issue needed addressing back in 2003. Our studies to justify the expense of Adopt Cuyahoga’s Kids Initiative showed the significant societal cost of incarceration or perpetuation of the abuse cycle due to these young people aging out of the child protection system.
But, the adoption crisis needed to be addressed first. Can we now come back together to help our aging-out children and guide them through young adulthood? Parents that can help these young adults continue their journey towards becoming respectful and responsible adult members of our community by learning to deal with the frustrations adults face like bureaucracies, forms and applications. But, more importantly, can we find someone for these young adults “to come home to?”
John Chapman, father of six adopted children, was the co-chair of United Way Community Vision Council on Strong Families=Successful Children in 2003 and received the Angel in Adoption Congressional Award in 2012.
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