More than 76,000 children reside in foster care in California each night.  Nationally, that number exceeds half a million.  Most of them have been removed from their birth families for their own safety; nearly all of them have, or will develop, some sort of “special needs”.

In child welfare, this label can indicate medical or developmental challenges; but it also refers to prenatal drug exposure; emotional problems stemming from abuse, neglect or other trauma; or any other factor that makes it difficult for a child to be adopted, such as being an older child, an ethnic minority, or one of a large set of siblings.

Such children often wait for months or even years for a place to call home, living in many different placements along the way.  In the worst cases, these youth emancipate from foster care at eighteen, and face staggeringly higher rates of poverty, unemployment, homelessness, and incarceration.

Since 1973, Adopt A Special Kid has been a leading agency working to place these children in permanent adoptive homes.  Annually, 16% of children in foster care are adopted, while an equal proportion age out of the system.