Imagine all your major life milestones happening without your family there to celebrate.
That was life for 15-year-old Carlo. He entered foster care as a toddler and for 13 years was bounced home to home without the stability of a permanent address, let alone a loving, permanent family.
Finally, at age 15, with the help of a caring adoption recruiter, Carlo was adopted by the Hatla family. He has been a proud member of the family since November 2017 and his mom says he is “kind, smart and funny.”
The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption launched its new website and it’s complete with some exciting new tools.
The site is still full of helpful information about foster care adoption, but it makes finding free resources even easier with the creation of a library. The library is a one-stop shop for anyone looking for more details on how to adopt from foster care.
You can also easily search the agencies that the Foundation works with to hire adoption recruiters across the US and Canada and connect to the agency that is your town.
Israel is five years old. His mother and father say he makes friends wherever he goes, but it’s a far cry from how his life started.
At just five years old, Israel has spent more than four years in foster care. He was put into eight different foster homes, he was separated from his siblings and he was labeled difficult and “unadoptable.” At only three years old, the system gave up on him.
The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption is excited to share our successes from our 25th anniversary year. Check out our annual report to learn more about the families created through the Wendy's Wonderful Kids program, the adoption recruiters who are so dedicated to our mission and the donors who make their work possible.
The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption is proud to fund adoption recruiter positions throughout the U.S. and Canada at private and public adoption agencies. These recruiters are part of our signature adoption program called Wendy’s Wonderful Kids.
There are more than 300 Wendy’s Wonderful Kids adoption recruiters who work specifically to find loving, permanent homes for the children who have been in foster care the longest. These dedicated professionals work with older children, sibling groups and children with special needs.
In honor of National Professional Social Worker Month, we wanted to share a very special story.
Jessica Phoenix is a Wendy’s Wonderful Kids adoption recruiter in Florida who works every day to find safe, loving families for children waiting in foster care. This past year she adopted Zay, a teen on her caseload who had all but given up hope for a family. His adoption was finalized just days before his 18th birthday. Here is their story:
Each year the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption ranks the nation’s employers based on their adoption benefits. This self-reported list is a way to highlight the organizations in the United States who stand with us in our support of adoption and adoption benefits that allow more and more families to grow through adoption.
One of the top 100 companies of 2017 is Robins & Morton. Founded in 1946, this privately held construction company is one of the largest in the nation.
Did you know that the average length of time that a child is in foster care before being adopted is about three years? Most children move house-to-house during that time and often fall behind in their school work, aren’t able to make lasting friendships and find it difficult to trust.
The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption works hard to find forever families for children waiting in foster care because we believe that every child deserves a safe, loving and permanent home.
Keeping sibling groups together is one of the main purposes of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption’s signature adoption program, Wendy’s Wonderful Kids. Too often siblings are separated when they enter foster care and our recruiters work hard to help siblings maintain those biological relationships and get adopted by the same family.
