When you adopt from Abrazo, you help save the children of Texas, one child at a time.
Abrazo works with placing parents all across the state. Some make adoption plans during pregnancy. Others revisit the adoption option later, by planning for a child they can no longer provide for. Either way, Abrazo has adoptive homes ready and willing to help offer permanence, nurture and safety, though compassionate open adoptions.
In a perfect world, of course, there’d be no need for adoption, nor for adoption agencies in Texas. That’s not how it is, though. Even before Covid-19 hit the Lone Star State, child welfare statistics in this state showed there was trouble brewing.
Adopt from Texas… please!
Why adopt from Texas? Why does anyone in Texas ever need to place?
Here’s the short answer: because far too many Texas children grow up with the odds stacked against them.
Twenty-one percent of Texas children (1 in 5) lives in poverty, according to San Antonio’s Rivard Report.
1 in 4 American children have at least one parent who is a substance abuser. As a result, a quarter of a million (yes, you read that right!) Texas kids are being raised by their grandparents. (This is typically due to the bio-parents being unable or unwilling to parent.)
TPPF published a report suggesting 90% of Texas foster kids in 2018 had “neglect” listed as a factor in their removal from their homes.
And as a state, Texas ranks towards the very bottom in a recent health study. This was cited by journalist Christopher Adams, in an article entitled “The Kids Aren’t Alright: How Texas Puts Its Children at Risk.”
Most disturbingly, state officials have failed to stem the foster-care-to-sex-trafficking pipeline in Texas. This is in spite of widespread knowledge that record numbers of kids who age out of Texas’ foster care system are ending up becoming either as criminals or victims of crime.
That’s not to say the future is inevitably bleak for all kids in Texas. However, it’s a clear indicator that Texas has a worrisome child welfare problem. And far too many kids are paying the price.
Save the Children. Start at Home.
Recently, on social media, the hashtag #SaveTheChildren has become politically popular, along with random (and misleading) stories suggesting epic recoveries of victimized children are being buried by mass media. (Not true, by the way.)
Such rumors “have legs” because the idea of children being saved appeals to us all. We like to think that “the authorities” are “doing their job” but rescuing big groups of children in trouble.
Yet in reality, the task of saving children falls to each of us, every day. We all know of kids in need, and we all have the responsibility of reporting kids at risk. Anyone of us can support the work of child welfare organizations or at least keep Texas’ children in our prayers.
What Can I Do?
The hero or heroine in an unplanned pregnancy story may be a pro-lifer who provides shelter for a homeless pregnant woman she met outside an abortion clinic. It could be a birthmom painstakingly making a loving adoption plan for her unborn child, wishing she could parent, but knowing someone else is better qualified to meet her child’s longterm needs. Or someone who gives a parent-in-need a referral to a licensed nonprofit agency like Abrazo.
The person rescuing a child in trouble could be a foster family caring for a sibling group whose parents were denied asylum. Or it could be an adoptive couple who rerouted their dreams from infant adoption to adopting a teen, knowing how much more older children need loving permanent homes.
It could be a teacher with the courage to call in a report of a child showing up for school with fresh bruises each day. It could be a Texas donating time to their local Big Brothers or Big Sisters program. Or it just might be someone like you, sending a tax-deductible contribution to a program like Abrazo, to help someone else help a child in need.
Save the children of Texas by caring enough to look for different ways to help… the possibilities are truly endless.
