National Adoption Day is an annual event held in November to raise awareness about the thousands of children in U.S. foster care awaiting permanent placement with adoptive families. The National Adoption Day Coalition sponsors the event, which takes place in communities across the country.
The coalition consists of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute, The Alliance for Children’s Rights, and the Children’s Action Network. The coalition provides resources for National Adoption Day on its website at www.nationaladoptionday.org.
Resources include:
• At-a-glance statistics about the number of children in foster care, the average wait time for a foster child to be adopted, and the number of children who age out of foster care annually.
• A step-by-step guide to adoption and links to additional information provided by coalition partners and other similar organizations.
• Access to volunteer, advocacy, and event-planning opportunities.
• Downloadable toolkits, including logos, brand assets, public service announcements, key messages, and fact sheets.
This year’s National Adoption Day is slated for November 21, although different communities may hold the event on other days. National Adoption Day facts and figures say that more than 400,000 children are in foster care in the United States and of these, more than 100,000 await adoption. The fact sheet says that on average, children wait nearly four years to be adopted and that 13 percent wait five or more years. The fact sheet says that more than 22,000 children reach age 18 without ever leaving foster care.