Foster and adoptive parents fill a huge need in Michigan

Published 5:21 pm Wednesday, May 2, 2007

By Staff
In an ideal world, every child would have a mother and father who loved them and provided for their every need.
Unfortunately, it isn't a perfect world.
In Michigan alone there are more than 4,000 children waiting for a family, or for their adoption to be finalized.
When parental rights are terminated, it is the loving and giving people who open their homes through foster care, who provide a place during transition.
Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm declared May as Foster Care Month in Michigan to highlight the vital role that foster families play in caring for the state's 18,500 foster children.
Foster Care Month provides an opportunity to make Michigan residents more aware of the need for caring, dedicated foster parents and the needs of children in foster care.
Children usually enter foster care because of neglect or abuse in their homes.
Foster care families provide safe, stable and supportive homes for these children and youths until they can be returned to their parents or are adopted into permanent homes.
Finding enough homes to meet the needs here in Michigan for foster families is critical.
Though the goal is for children to remain, or be returned to their parents, safety concerns often mean separation is necessary. When children must be removed, those in the Department of Human Services (DHS) are interested in the child's welfare work toward keeping children with siblings and relatives and in their communities.
Babies are easier to love, but older children and minorities are often hardest to place.
Forty of these children are featured in a heart-warming photographic exhibit called the Michigan Heart Gallery.
The Michigan Heart Gallery, a collaborative effort between the Michigan Adoption Resource Exchange, the Adoptive Family Support Network and the Michigan Department of Human Services (DHS), seeks to bring our community closer to the faces and voices of children waiting for a "forever family."
This exhibit will be touring Michigan and free copies are available of a promotional DVD, featuring photographs from the exhibit, video of children who are waiting to be adopted and information about the adoption process for families who are ready to begin the process.
The photographs in The Heart Gallery were taken by more than 40 professional photographers who donated their time, talent and resources to take portraits that help capture the spirit of children in the foster care system.
The Heart Gallery allows these children to be seen in an artistic, poignant and tasteful photographic exhibit. The kids thoroughly enjoyed their photo shoot experience. Some children were able to help select which portrait to feature in The Heart Gallery, while others came up with their own poses and some were given lessons in photography during the photo shoot, allowing them to become budding photographers themselves. For more information about the Michigan Heart Gallery and how you can get involved, please call (800) 589-6273 or visit the Web site at www.miheart.org.