In 2006, NACAC embarked on a new initiative to expand post-adoption services in communities around North America. Through its network of adoptive parents, child welfare professionals, and parent groups, NACAC has identified eight communities with limited adoption services, significant numbers of foster children who have been adopted, as well as programs that are successfully serving families raising adopted children with special needs. These target locations include:
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Los Angeles County |
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Eau Claire County, Wisconsin |
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Ontario, Canada |
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District of Columbia |
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Orlando, Florida |
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Kansas City, Missouri |
In each site, NACAC has identified a team of adoption professionals and adoptive parents to co-lead the community coalition. NACAC, together with the top experts in the field, will train these teams to develop, advocate for and obtain funding for effective post-adoption service models in their communities. Each team will develop an action plan to guide its local efforts, and will work to build a coalition in their community by enlisting organizations, individuals, parents and professionals to join the advocacy effort.
Based on the initial success of this model, NACAC will expand Community Champions Network in 2008 to the following new sites:
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Sacramento County, California |
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St. Louis, Missouri |
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Tampa, Florida |
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The Community Champions Network was founded with financial support from Jockey Being Family™, Jockey International’s corporate citizenship initiative to strengthen adoptive families for successful futures. Through Jockey Being Family, Jockey provides funding, employee volunteers and in-kind donations to its nonprofit partners to enhance their post-adoption services capabilities for families in Wisconsin and nationwide. |
Resources
Below you can download PDFs of the Community Champion Network newsletter to learn more about the project and each site's goals and progress:
The following materials (in Word and Excel) are designed to help those who are creating or enhancing post-adoption services in their communities:
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Release — It is a common experience for post-adoption resource centers and providers to report difficulty in contacting adoptive families for the purposes of publicizing their services. In this age of HIPPA and heightened concerns about confidentiality, agencies are reluctant to share contact information or send out announcements on behalf of providers and programs. The state of Wisconsin has created a release form for adoptive parents to sign upon legalization so that they can be informed of programs and services that may be of help in parenting their growing family in future days. This template can be adapted for your region to use. Our thanks to the Wisconsin CCN site.
- Surveys — When creating post-adoption services and programs, it is essential to have families and youth inform our efforts. These three surveys (parent, youth, and professional versions) have been used in Rhode Island to assess community needs very successfully. Thanks to the Los Angeles County Post Adoption Unit of DCYF.
The following documents (in Word) are designed to help advocates who would like to host a Kids and Judges Day in their community. These events are designed to educate judges and court personnel about children's and youth's needs, and to ease children's and youth's fears about the court process. We encourage you to use these document to host your own Kids and Judges Day!
The Need
The needs of adopted children and their families do not end when the adoption is legally finalized. Many families, especially those who adopt older children from the foster care system, face extra challenges. Post-adoption services provide families with critical resources necessary to strengthen their bonds, stabilize their families, and continue to provide secure and loving permanent homes for their children.
These services are often provided through community-based organizations and can include parent support groups, respite care, education and training, lending libraries, mentoring and buddy systems, warm lines, plus mental health and other medical services. Due to a lack of awareness and limited funding at the state, provincial, and county levels, however, many adoptive families have no access to these services.
The Goal
The ultimate goal of the Community Champions Network is to provide thousands of families with increased stability and preserved adoptions as a result of increased access to quality post-adoption services. The project will work toward this goal by empowering leaders to build community coalitions that work to create sustainable post-adoption services through a combination of grassroots organizing, public awareness campaigns, and advocacy efforts.
Jockey Being Family receives Adoption Excellence Award from Administration for Children and Families
Jockey International, a privately held, family-owned Midwest apparel
company, created its first signature citizenship initiative, Jockey Being
Family, in October 2004. The initiative, which started in Wisconsin as a way of engaging Jockey employees in service and volunteer activities, is focused on supporting families after they have adopted a child from the U.S. foster care system. Through research, Jockey learned that many companies focus philanthropic efforts on recruiting adoptive parents but few, if any, were supporting families post-adoption. Drawing on the apparent need for more post-adoption resources, Jockey focused its funding on organizations that provide such services to families.
Jockey now supports leading national and local nonprofit organizations that deliver post-adoption services to families in Wisconsin and nationwide through fiscal and in-kind donations. Among others, Jockey supports Adoption Resources of Wisconsin, North American Council on Adoptable Children, and Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption.
Employee engagement is an important part of Jockey Being Family and more than one-third of employees in Jockey's headquarters volunteer their time and talents to support local adoptive families with a number of activities, including the "Home to Stay" backpack program and "Home Adaptation Project". Volunteers of the "Home to Stay" program create personalized backpacks filled with books, music, and toys for newly adopted children in Wisconsin. Jockey volunteers also make hand-made blankets to place in the backpacks. Volunteers of the "Home Adaptation Project" assist with remodeling the homes of local adoptive families with children with severe disabilities.
Jockey has been recognized as the 2005 Wisconsin Adoption Advocate of the Year and profiled as an employer with enhanced adoption benefits, one of which includes a $10,000 stipend per child per year to any employee who adopts. |
