Too many children in the child welfare system lose their families, their rights and their hope.
We see news stories everyday about children taken from an abusive home, or because of the tragic loss of a parent- to illness or violence or incarceration. We assume there must be a program or system that will take care of these children and make sure they are treated with dignity, given a safe place to live, so they can recover from their hardship and be a child again.
But there is a story behind the story that few people speak about. It is the story of an overburdened foster care system that- though full of well intended and deeply committed people- cannot begin to meet the needs of the more than 660,000 children in foster care in the United States at any given time.
But these children's stories can have better ending, because there is a group of trained volunteers, appointed by judges to advocate for these children. People who fight for these abused and neglected children, to make sure their basic rights and essential needs don't get overlooked or ignored by the system. These stories can have better endings because of people like you.