Father’s Day: 4 Stories of Gay Dads and Their Foster Families
For Father’s Day, The Advocate teamed up with Extraordinary Families, a Los Angeles-based foster and adoption agency, to highlight LGBTQ+ dads showing the world that love is what defines a family.A child enters foster care every two minutes in the United States, and currently there are over 400,000 children in care, according to Extraordinary Families. In Los Angeles County alone, there are approximately 20,000 children and youth in foster care at any given time, making it one of the largest foster care systems in the country. Older children, sibling sets, those with disabilities, and youth who identify as LGBTQ+ are often in care longer and less likely to be adopted. Complicating things, the Trump administration just this month pushed the Supreme Court to greenlight religious-based discrimination that would allow agencies to turn away prospective LGBTQ+ parents.
Thanks to the help and partnership of quality resource families, Extraordinary Families, which works with many LGBTQ+ parents and kiddos, is helping to find safe and nurturing families for all children in foster care. Scroll down and read some of their success stories.
Since 1994, Extraordinary Families has been a leader in foster care, adoption, and child welfare policy reform. A leading nonprofit foster family, adoption, and advocacy agency based in Los Angeles, it is dedicated to improving the daily lives and long-term outcomes of children and youth in foster care by recruiting, training, and supporting high quality foster and adoptive (resource) parents for children removed from their families due to abuse or neglect. The organization welcomes a diverse population of individuals and families to serve as resource parents regardless of age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, disability, marital or domestic partner status, political affiliation, or ancestry. Resource families are viewed as members of a team providing individualized care so each child can reach her/his/their fullest potential.
Original Article on The Advocate
Author: Advocate Contributors
