Gladney Blog

Oh my, do we ever have the sweetest siblings to introduce today! There are 4 of them and they each have such precious, different personalities!

Read the latest information about Gladney's China and Taiwan's adoption program in the January 2019 Gladney Newsletter.

The adoption process can be stressful. Although there are scholarships and grants available to help with the fees, sometimes they don’t cover all of them. However, there are many ways to fundraise! One idea is hosting a coffee sale. Here are some tips for organizing one:

This is a very exciting time for the Gladney Center for Adoption. We are embarking on a long-term plan to address why children continue to wait in foster care after they are legally available for adoption. Gladney has always believed every child deserves a loving and caring family, and in many ways, Gladney is returning to its roots. We began when our founder Reverend I.Z.T. Morris took on the responsibility of finding loving families for children from the orphan trains who arrived in Texas after they hadn’t found homes along the way. Although children no longer take long journeys across the country on orphan trains, the children waiting in foster care have often survived a much longer, more treacherous journey. Most children living in foster care are there because they experienced abuse, neglect, or other trauma. In addition, they have experienced the loss of a family due to removal from their homes and separation from their biological families. Once in foster care, most of these children will experience multiple placements, moving from one foster family to the next or to group homes. We know children thrive in families, and children who have experienced trauma can only find safety, security, and nurturing in a loving and caring, forever family.

Gladney has been placing children from foster care for many years. In October 2018, the Gladney Center Board of Directors voted to further advance Gladney’s focus and mission by creating a task force to grow and improve adoptions from foster care. The purpose of the task force is “to create a sustainable and replicable model that places every adoptable child waiting in Texas foster care.” The members of the task force include Gladney board members, Gladney parents who adopted children from foster care, and Gladney staff, with input from outside experts in relevant fields. Gladney board member Roger Metz serves as the chair of the task force. This group begins its exciting and strategic work this month.

In preparation for the creation of the task force and its work, Gladney staff spent the summer and fall researching questions and issues affecting foster care and pulling data, information, and anecdotal evidence regarding children in foster care who are waiting for adoption. Gladney staff will continue to work closely with Our Community Our Kids in Fort Worth, in order to identify children who need adoptive homes much earlier in their legal process than in the past. Our staff are also communicating with Child Protective Services and Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) volunteers from around the state who are advocating for children throughout the legal process. In addition, Gladney has begun to open lines of communication with agencies across the United States who are screening, educating, training, and offering supportive services to prospective families who want to adopt children from foster care.

The task force will begin to assess what would be the highest and best use of Gladney’s strengths and what Gladney’s primary role should be in meeting the needs of these waiting children. They will approach the issues from three directions: impacting external systems to serve children and families; constructing the best internal systems to create scalability; and ensuring long-term sustainability. Once the initial work is started, the task force will work to create strategies for success, set objectives with clear measurable goals, and provide input and evaluate Gladney’s progress against the strategies’ short, intermediate, and long-term goals and desired outcomes.

Gladney’s mission is Creating Bright Futures Through Adoption. With the work of Gladney’s board, committed staff, engaged volunteers, and collaborative partners, we hope to impact the futures of thousands of children who are waiting in foster care for a forever family, because every one of these children deserves a loving and caring family.

You know how we love announcing matches! And we have the amazing news that we have 3 boys from Taiwan who were recently matched. The first little boy is only 19 months old and we met him on our last Superkids trip!

Elizabeth is only 14 months old and her file was prepared when she was only 10 months old. At that time she was pulling herself on her tummy in an army crawl. Her caregivers describe her as a sweet, happy baby.

We have met Mario several times, too many times really when you think that he could have been home by now. You can read some of the posts we have written about him here and here.

It is Monday morning. While the nation at large is waking up, loathe to begin another work week, those of us connected with the China adoption community wake up a little early and grab our phones or laptops to check social media sites.

The process of adopting can be stressful on you and your family. However, the cost shouldn’t be something that deters you. One way to raise money is through social media posts and crowdfunding. This might be one of the simplest ways to raise money, with little to no costs to you. Each fundraising campaign can utilize social media in some way.

As you are exploring adoption as an option for your family, we are sure that you have many questions. Once a month we ask Mike & Astra a question about their adoption experience.