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To Protect, Love and Nurture
The Journey From Single Person to Adoptive Family
By Mark Stackpole
Until you become a parent, it can be difficult to know just what it is like, and Schwartz has faced that steep learning curve like any good mother would – with love and dedication. "I had no idea what it took to raise a child and had to learn the hard way by trial and error," she says. "But after two years, I am thrilled to be a parent and love my children dearly."
Eileen Mayers Pasztor is a professor in the Department of Social Work at California State University, Long Beach, and has more than 35 years of experience in the child welfare field. She estimates that there are 200,000 children in the United States who need families. Most of those children, though, are not infants, may be of color and may be part of sibling sets. Many have special needs because of the circumstances that brought them to the attention of the child welfare system. This makes it more challenging to find adoptive families, as people are typically looking to adopt babies.
Though adoption is often framed as helping people become parents, Pasztor wants to ensure that the focus remains on the needs of the children. "Adoption is not about finding children for adults; it is about finding families for children – families who can protect and nurture them," says Pasztor, who is also an adoptive parent. "To be an adoptive parent is a privilege, not a right. But for a child to be protected is a right, not a privilege."
Pasztor is also one of the authors of a training program published by the Child Welfare League of America and its affiliates called PRIDE. Its purpose is to strengthen the quality of foster care and adoption services provided to prospective parents. The PRIDE program revolves around five core competencies for foster and adoptive families:
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