Special Section: November Is National Adoption Month

Join the Children's Bureau and its partners in celebrating National Adoption Month 2004!

The theme for this year's National Adoption Month is "Answering the Call--You don't have to be perfect to be a perfect parent." This theme builds on the Collaboration to AdoptUSKids' national recruitment campaign, Answering the Call.

There are many ways to join in the celebration:

• Encourage local television, radio, and print media outlets to run the free public service announcements developed by the Ad Council. These ads encourage families to step forward to be foster and adoptive families by realizing they "don't have to be a hero to be a hero" (www.adcouncil.org/campaigns/adoption).
• Check out the recruitment and marketing toolkit, developed by The Collaboration to AdoptUSKids. This downloadable toolkit provides ideas and resources to help promote and celebrate a month of adoption events (www.adoptuskids.org/content_images/my_page_social_worker/ Adoption_Month_Toolkit_04.pdf). (PDF 645 KB)
• Get involved with your State's Recruitment Response Team to help respond to inquiries generated by the national recruitment campaign. For more information or to find your State team, contact Mary Lou Edgar, Fulfillment Director, The Collaboration to AdoptUSKids; phone/fax (302) 475-1103; cell (302) 545-3361; mledgar@adoptuskids.org.
• Ask local public officials and legislators to sign a proclamation for National Adoption Month or National Adoption Day--a day when hundreds of children around the country will have their adoptions finalized in local courts and jurisdictions (www.nationaladoptionday.org/2004).
• Get involved with a local court that is holding a National Adoption Day celebration.
• Go to the National Adoption Month website (http://naic.acf.hhs.gov/general/adoptmonth/index.cfm) to learn more about the children waiting for adoptive families, how to adopt, and how professionals can further their recruitment efforts.
• Consider whether your family--or a family you know--could adopt one of the 129,000 children currently waiting for families in the nation's foster care system.
• Celebrate with local foster/adoptive families. Hold a family appreciation potluck or awards ceremony.

Find more ways to celebrate--one for each day in November--on the Adoption Month calendar (http://naic.acf.hhs.gov/general/adoptmonth/activities_calendar.cfm).

National Adoption Month is celebrated throughout the United States during the month of November. The Collaboration to AdoptUSKids and the National Adoption Information Clearinghouse, both services of the Children's Bureau, collaborated to create this year's National Adoption Month website.