The adoption process can be slow, sometimes taking longer than a year. This largely administrative activity swallows precious time that foster children, especially older kids, don’t have to waste.
Older kids are among the most difficult to place in a permanent home and face terrible odds without a family. Twenty-five percent of children who “age out” of foster care will immediately become homeless upon turning eighteen. Eighty percent of young men who age out of the foster system will be arrested by age 26, and eighty percent of young women will become pregnant by the same age.
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