July 23, 2002
CBN.com –
WASHINGTON- Actor Bruce Willis and the White House are teaming
up to recruit more people to adopt the tens of thousands
of often older, emotionally bruised children languishing
in foster care.
In an East Room event Tuesday, President Bush was unveiling
a new public service television advertisement filmed by
Willis and first lady Laura Bush to encourage would-be parents
to look to the rolls of foster children to build their families.
Willis, a longtime
Bush supporter, has agreed to serve as a national spokesman
for children in foster care.
Bush also was
announcing a new Web site aimed at matching would-be parents
with children nationwide who are available for adoption.
The adoption event
allows Bush to appeal to his voter base of Christian conservatives
by promoting an alternative to abortion and to burnish his
credentials as a "compassionate conservative"
by extending a government hand to at-risk children.
As such, Bush
was also highlighting government incentives for adoption,
such as tax credits and increased funding for post-adoption
family support, that he has backed during his presidency.
In its first year,
the new federally sponsored site will feature photographs
and profiles of over 6,500 waiting children from 46 states,
as well as a database of approved adoptive families, according
to the White House.
Of the approximately
565,000 American children in foster care, there were 134,000
children of all ages available for adoption between April
and September 2000, usually because their parents lost custody
due to abuse or neglect. Of them, about 50,000 were found
permanent homes, according to the most recent period for
which data were available.
Children spend
an average of four years in foster care, the White House
said.
Most are not healthy
infants. Rather, many have special circumstances that can
make adoption difficult, such as their age, ethnicity, emotional
needs resulting from abuse, physical disabilities or brothers
and sisters that don't want to be separated.
The Web site,
created by the National Adoption Center with funding from
the Department of Health and Human Services, aims to overcome
some of those obstacles by widening the search nationwide
to "reduce the geographic barriers and waiting time
needed to connect children from across the country with
adoptive families."
Prospective parents
also will be able to communicate interactively over the
site with other families and state adoption specialists
to get the answers they need about the process.
"A lot of
people don't know that adoption is not just for babies,"
said Gloria Hochman, director of communications for the
National Adoption Center. "What we have found over
the years is once families know these children exist, they
really do come forth to adopt them."
The PSA will advertise
the Web site, as well as a toll-free number where interested
families can get information and a referral.
The site will
replace a similar one that has been advertising available
children since 1995.
The numbers of
waiting children have been growing steadily in recent years,
due in part to a new federal law that pushes judges to act
more quickly in terminating parent rights and gives new
incentives for families to adopt.
The National Adoption
Center says more than 650 children have found adoptive families
as a result of their site, with about 900 families each
year getting information at the site that leads them to
adopt a child found elsewhere.
--
On the Net:
National Adoption
Center: www.adoptuskids.org
