Youth Villages celebrates an adoption story on National Foster Care Day. Even the best laid plans don’t go as planned, and that also goes for foster care and adoption. However, for Chinishe Ray, her plans to adopt have gone as expected not only once but twice.
May is Foster Care Awareness month and Youth Villages uses this month to not only bring awareness to the kids in need but recognize the work done by foster parents, including a single dad from Cleveland winning foster care parent of the year.
Foster parenting sounds intimidating but with support, can be incredibly rewarding. Linzie Mullins, a Youth Villages foster-to-adopt parent in Memphis, was once in your shoes.
May is celebrated as National Foster Care Awareness Month to bring awareness to the need for more foster care families. In Tennessee, approximately 8,000 children are in foster care at any given time.
Governor Bill Lee made a statement saying Tennessee’s adoption and foster care system is strong in regard to how Tennessee will support families if Roe v. Wade is overturned.
For Spring Hill residents Carly and Chrissy Shogren, Mother’s Day is something they never expected to be able to celebrate for themselves. Fortunately, their willingness to be flexible and open led to becoming mothers becoming a reality.
Dear Youth Villages, My name is Amber, and I am 23 years old. I lost my dad at a very young age and grew up with a mother who battled addiction and untreated trauma that led to many mental health problems leaving her incapable of caring for herself or for me.
Nineteen-year-old Dallas, a young man in southwest Missouri, sees his LifeSet specialist as more than just a health professional working to help him. She’s more like a friend walking with him every step—something he hasn’t always had.
Dominique and Kevin Gill continue to change the lives of children in foster care—children like Andrew who was adopted by the Gills in 2020.
Mia must have thought the world was crumbling around her. “It was hard, stressful,” said Mia, who was 16 years old at the time. “I was the oldest (child), so I had to keep pushing for everyone. I kept praying.”