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Briefly share about your lived experience in foster care as a child and how that impacted your career path and who you are today.

My 11 years in foster care made me who I am. They determined why I chose a career as a children’s rights lawyer and policy advisor. Though I make a point not to talk about it with a child I am representing, my experience shapes my approach, what to ask and not to ask, how to listen better, and how to leave that conversation with the child not feeling vulnerable.

Talk about your role as executive director of the Alliance for Children’s Rights in helping to launch National Adoption Day in 1999. How has this collaborative movement evolved over the years, and why is it important today?

National Adoption Day began with a local partnership between the Los Angeles foster care department and the Alliance. I had a different relationship with department officials because they knew that the system they were responsible for had once been responsible for raising me. Several senior managers remembered my case, my mom and me as a boy. They approached me to help resolve a backlog of thousands of cases of children with identified adoptive families who were still in the foster care system unnecessarily. We partnered with the department, then recruited, trained and supervised the work of dozens of private law firms who volunteered their time to go through each case, identify what the hold-up was, resolve it and move forward with the adoption. We worked with another local nonprofit applying the same model.

After finalizing the adoptions of those children in Los Angeles, we wanted to take the same model and implement it with local departments, juvenile courts and volunteer lawyers nationwide. The problem was money. We didn’t have the funds and couldn’t find enough from local foundations to pay for it. The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption saved the day. It was the only national foundation willing to take the risk and get it done.

That collaboration allowed National Adoption Day to grow from four cities in the first year to more the next, eventually reaching hundreds of communities and resulting in more than 85,000 adoptions of children recognized through National Adoption Day events across the United States to date. Every year, the number of children who leave the system and have a permanent home grows. That new hope that having a forever family brings will last for thousands of lifetimes.

What are 2-3 things you would change about the child welfare system to better serve the needs of children, and what can legal professionals and communities do to help?

We take far too many children from their families when it’s unnecessary. Overwhelmingly, most children enter care not because of abuse but because of poverty. Stepping up and addressing the needs of families in their communities and homes would dramatically reduce the number of children being placed in the system that we all know is stretched far too thin to adequately serve the needs of all. Another change that would make a significant difference is supporting kinship families in taking in children from the system. Most families who adopt children from foster care are relatives. Increased financial support, education, mental health services and accessible advice would go a long way. Legal professionals can help families access this support when available and work on essential legislative and policy changes.

Why do you believe legal permanency is important for every child?

Legal permanency is essential for every child because every child and adult needs a lifelong family. There is no better safety net than a family that loves a child and is there to catch them when they stumble. Permanency is that trust in belonging to someone and the people around you. Children need that, and as we all know, adults depend on it too. Nothing can substitute for it. Families raise and love children, not systems.

What would you tell someone who is considering becoming a foster or adoptive parent but may be unsure?

The love you give as a foster or adoptive parent will go on from that one child and last into the generations that follow. Save a child’s life, and you save a world. There will be people who care and will be there during the tough times that every person faces. And your life will find love that it would not have had.

Thank you, Andrew, for sharing your story and for being a voice for thousands of children waiting for a family.

Are you helping to plan a National Adoption Day event in your community?

Visit the National Adoption Day website to register your event and access free resources to help.

Not hosting an event but still want to help?

Download social media assets, including graphics and sample copy to raise awareness and support for foster care adoption on this special day. Use the hashtag #NationalAdoptionDay to expand the reach of your message.