Connection is at the heart of our mission. It is our connection to others that makes life rich and meaningful, and we believe every child deserves to have the most basic experience of connection – family. All of our programs, events, and services aim to create the life-changing connections between children and families that result in the stable, caring relationships our kids need to thrive.
We continue to fight for those kids most likely to experience disconnection, isolation, and long waits for adoptive families. This year, 22% of all youth placed were teens, and 15% were in group care settings. This continues a multi-year trend of success for these older youth, thanks in large part to specialized programs like Wendy’s Wonderful Kids, Weekend Family Connections, and Videosnapshots. A full 37% of our placements this year were from sibling groups, representing 90 children who were able to keep their vital sibling connection intact.
We’ve continued to provide families with the means and resources they need for life-changing connection as parents. We became more engaged with communities of color at a local level, and provided resources throughout the year to help families maintain their child’s cultural community connections. We offered many opportunities for training in Trust-Based Relational Intervention, giving parents the tools they need to build meaningful connection with their kids. Across all of our programs, over 650 families attended our events and trainings this year.
None of this would be possible without our amazing community of collaborators, supporters, funders, and volunteers. Together, you are making a difference for hundreds of children in foster care as they find the connections that will truly transform their lives.
Among the children and teens we serve, 34% are in group care settings. Youth in group care live in institutional settings, isolated from community and outside of a family environment. These kids face dire obstacles to finding adoptive families, often waiting more than five years for the life-changing connection of a permanent family. Yet, there is hope. With the help of programs like Weekend Family Connections, we nearly doubled the number of kids from group settings that found adoptive placements this past year.
For children of color, maintaining meaningful connection with their culture and racial identity is essential as they navigate adoption. That's why we've focused on recruiting families of color into the adoption process and on creating trainings for families on racial and cultural identity.
This was the second year for the Outreach and Support Coordinator for Adoptive Families of Color, Mary Liz Nogueras. This program has made great progress in developing relationships with cultural hubs and in creating new peer-to-peer support groups and other educational supports for prospective and adoptive families of color. With consistent relationship building in these communities, we continued a multi-year increase in the number of families of color adopting from foster care.
Mary Liz has also worked to develop a new series of trainings for foster and adoptive parents to help them advocate for their children’s positive racial and cultural identity and provide ongoing opportunities for their children to experience and maintain their connection to their own culture.
The bond between siblings can be one of the only stable connections children keep in a turbulent foster care system. Finding families that can adopt multiple children and keep sibling groups together is one of the most important ways we can serve these youth. This year we placed ninety siblings together, representing dozens of sibling groups now in adoptive families.
Placements by Attribution
In total, 249 children receiving MARE services were placed in adoptive homes last year. The majority of those placements were directly attributable to MARE services, programs, and events.
Placements by Key Demographics
We are especially focused on groups most likely to wait the longest for adoptive homes: children of color, teens, siblings, LGBTQ+ youth, and those with disabilities. 87% of our 249 placements served these target groups - 209 placements in total.
82% program services
10% fundraising
8% management & general
