Annual Report Spotlight: May – Project Family
Project Family, Lund’s partnership with the Vermont Department for Children and Families, is an innovative collaboration with remarkable outcomes. Formed in 2000, Project Family has finalized the adoptions of over 2,620 children. 315 in 2018 alone. Before this partnership, DCF finalized an average of 35 adoptions a year. This initiative was conceived by Lund’s Director of Adoption Wanda Audette and the late Diane Dexter, then Vermont’s Adoption Chief as a way to combine the resources of Lund and the State of Vermont, and direct these resources toward reducing the number of children waiting to be adopted in Vermont. Both agencies were acutely aware of the needs of the hundreds of Vermont’s children living in foster care to find permanent, loving homes. Through joining forces, with each partner agency doing what it does best throughout the adoption process, they created a program that eliminated many of the bureaucratic barriers to adoption and put the focus of Vermont’s adoption efforts where they should be: on finding permanent, loving homes for foster children.
Project Family was initially funded by a five-year federal demonstration grant and the outcomes were so successful that the state has continued to fund the work since that grant ended. This partnership has gained widespread national recognition including an “Angel in Adoption” award from the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute in 2009.
Being a member of a family is a right not a privilege. It is imperative that Project Family find families for children and young people as soon as possible. The latest data from the KidsCount survey shows that 66 young people aged out of foster care in Vermont in the previous year without being adopted having a forever family. Young people who age out of foster care experience poor outcomes at a higher rate than the general population. Data from the Annie E. Casey Foundation shows:
- More than one in five will become homeless after 18
- Only 58% will graduate high school by age 19 (compared to 87% of all 19 year olds)
- 71% of young women are pregnant by 21, facing higher rates of unemployment, criminal conviction, public assistance, and involvement in the child welfare system
- At the age of 24, only half are employed
- Fewer than 3% will earn a college degree by age 25 (compared to 28% of all 25 year olds
- One in four will be involved in the justice system within two years of leaving foster care
- Lund’s Project Family workers work across the state to find forever families for children and young people. They also do all that is needed to make sure that families adopting children from foster care have the supports that they need to thrive and that the children are well prepared for what adoption will mean for them.
Every child deserves a forever family. Right now in Vermont there are over 100 children in state’s custody legally freed for adoption with no identified family. Lund’s compassionate, experienced adoption team will not stop until every child has a safe and loving home.
