Today is the start of National Adoption Awareness month. This year’s theme is adopting teens from foster care. While we may not all be able to, or want to, adopt a teen from foster care, raising awareness of foster care and foster care adoption is critical. Each day I will profile something that you can do to raise awareness or celebrate adoption within your family.

Last year we were fortunate enough to be able to participate in Voice for Adoption's Adoptive Family Portrait Project. The “event” was sponsored by Voice for Adoption. It required little effort on our part, but brought awareness to our family in particular, as well as foster care adoption. We were provided a questionnaire by Voice for Adoption, where we answered questions about how we felt. We answered the following questions.

• Please describe your family - names, children’s ages, age when adopted (if applicable), personalities, hobbies, etc.



• Do any of your children have special needs? If so, please describe the special needs.



• What motivated you to adopt?




• What recruitment efforts or campaigns, if any, were effective in helping you decide to adopt a child from foster care?



• What services, supports, or subsidies were important in making it possible for you to adopt?



• Does your family use any post-adoption services? If yes, please describe what they are and how they help your family.



• Does your family do anything to celebrate adoption? If yes, please describe what you do.



• What challenges, if any, has your family experienced through adoption?




• What do you think is most important for members of Congress to understand about adoptive families and adopting children from foster care?

The answers to our questions were posted along with our family’s photo outside our Congressman. James Sensenbrenner’s office, who is the Congressman for our area.

The families for this year have already been chosen, but you can still write to your congressperson. You can find the contact information for your congressperson on this website. You can use these questions as a starting point for what you’d like to say.

Unless the representatives that make the legislation are foster or adoptive parents themselves, they have no idea what our lives our like. Give them a glimpse into what we go through, the services we need, the areas where things are lacking, and other things you think they need to know to adequately make laws for our families. Do not be afraid to speak passionately and honestly about your lives. Include a picture of your family. Seeing the people that are being written about makes them more real than simply words on a page.

Don't be afraid to speak out. It's the only way we can make our voices heard.

Photo credit