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There’s a myth out there that to adopt or care for a foster child, your family needs to resemble something out of an ancient sitcom: one mom in an apron, one dad in a business suit. This is, indeed, a myth

Forever Families offers comprehensive pre-service training and ongoing support to its resource families, but no amount of preparation can cover the infinite number of situations that might arise. Children in care and their resource families are surrounded by a web of support that can include support groups, therapists trained in trauma-informed care, a court-appointed special advocate (CASA) and school foster youth services worker, among others. Visits with birth family members are likely to be part of the weekly schedule–not to mention school, mental health appointments, extracurricular activities, court hearings and visits with the county worker and court-appointed special advocate. It’s normal to wish to protect your children’s innocence.

But they also have a serious intent: to shine a light on the critical need for families to adopt older children and provide them with life-changing unconditional love, safety and support. According to the National Foster Youth Institute, 23,000 foster children turn 18 each year and are left to navigate the transition to adulthood without a permanent family. But if adoptive parents take on their role with realistic expectations and an open heart, a lifetime relationship of love and influence can form – even when the teen is in the home for only a few, precious years. Being at a child’s side as they navigate those milestones is a deep source of bonding between parent and child, and adoptive parents don’t want to miss out on this.

, the child’s attorney, the county counsel and the juvenile court judge–are the county’s representatives and make the “parental” decisions about the future of the child in your home. Sometimes resource parents who are used to being decision-makers in the home, leaders in the private sector, or successful in the business world get their first big dose of how government functions, or dysfunctions, when the child welfare system becomes part of their everyday lives. The court and county decisions about the child in your home are made from a complex mix of legal matters, birth parents’ rights, the changing winds of child welfare policy, and children’s “best interests. Even when it’s not possible to influence the process or change the outcome, your SFF worker can walk alongside your family as an advocate, interpreter and navigator through the twists and turns of foster care and adoption in the child welfare system.