WARREN Making pitch for adoption

Children stuck in foster care often face a bleak future.
By STEPHEN SIFF
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
WARREN -- People who adopt school-age children with physical and behavioral problems have a few things in common, according to demographic studies.
They are usually low- or middle-class, not rich. They're involved in their church and enjoy hobbies such as bowling and fishing. They tend to shop in discount stores and eat fast food.
Reaching these people is a critical step to getting troubled children out of state custody and into a permanent home.
"It is the happiest day of their life when the leave the system," said Cindy Deal, executive director of Northeast Ohio Adoptive Services. "They want to be raised by parents."
The Warren-based adoption agency has just been awarded a $1 million grant from the state Department of Jobs and Family Services to use high-tech marketing techniques to find them.
Targeting specific areas: Using demographic profiles developed by previous studies, the adoption agency will target its pitch to neighborhoods where the most likely potential parents live.
"We feel this is our best chance to find people for the thousands of kids in Ohio waiting to be adopted," she said.
A staff of four will work the churches and community gathering places in the targeted neighborhoods, and their efforts will be backed up by billboards, tray liners in fast-food restaurants and notices in real estate magazines. They are starting with seven ZIP codes, including one in Youngstown, and that number will increase as the study progresses.
The University of Akron will evaluate the results by comparing adoption in targeted neighborhoods with the rate in other neighborhoods with similar demographics, Deal said.
Homing in on parents most likely to go through with adoption is important for Northeast Ohio Adoptive Services because so many people express interest, then back down from taking in the children the agency is dedicated to help. Of 100 phone calls to the agency from potential adoptive parents, only three eventually lead to placements, Deal said.
Unwanted children: The widespread perception that America has no children available for adoption, and that adopting a child has to cost tens of thousands of dollars, is simply not true. But the fact is that the boys and girls in need of homes are the ones few people want. Many became wards of the state because they were abused or neglected, or their mother was on drugs.
And it takes a toll, Deal said. Many children have behavioral problems, psychological problems, medical problems from neglect. Some need treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder to cope with what had been their family life.
As children get older, their chance of finding a permanent adoptive home dwindles. By the time a boy or girl is 15, the chance is next to nothing, said Judy McCartney, a spokeswoman for NOAS.
A childhood in foster care can mean as many as 20 different homes, none of which is truly the child's own; then no one to give them advice, old furniture, a loan, or a place to spend Thanksgiving once they turn 18. About 40 percent of young adults who leave state foster care are homeless within the first year of leaving, Deal said.
Adoptive mother: "Our country needs our children adopted," said Christine McCullough, 40, who has adopted four children from foster care. "Our children need a home."
McCullough said she took in the first child 16 years ago, to help out the mother, who was addicted to drugs. She was working then, and traveled to perform as a gospel singer at churches and conventions.
Since then, she has taken in three more children and made them her own. The career has fallen by the wayside.
"As soon as I got the children, I didn't want to be away all the time," she said. "Family changes everything."