West Virginia families who have opened their homes and expanded their families by adopting children came out to celebrate National Adoption Month.
Joining the celebration was Judge Gary Johnson, Chairman of the Supreme Court’s Court Improvement Program Oversight Board (CIP) since 2001, who gave a speech at the Adoption Day ceremony on Nov. 21, in South Charleston.
“I’ve always been a huge advocate for adoption out of foster care, so that’s why I got involved,” the judge told The West Virginia Record.
The late afternoon event took place at South Charleston Memorial Ice Arena and kicked off with a two-hour free ice skating session open to the public. After the skating session, a candlelight ceremony honoring more than 1,000 children in West Virginia awaiting adoption was held.
The Recruitment and Retention Collaborative came on board as sponsors and provided pizza, snacks, dessert, hot chocolate and covered ice skating fees. Mission West Virginia also sponsored the event.
Johnson’s presence was significant at the event because he was instrumental in establishing the first West Virginia University College of Law class on child protection and the law.
Johnson stated that as the chairman of CIP, he has often dealt with issues of adoption, abuse and neglect, and helped recommend and improve procedures in such cases.
In addition to being CIP chairman, Johnson, who is the only judge in Nicholas County, is also a member of the Supreme Court’s Juvenile Justice Commission, the 2014 Governor’s Intergovernmental Task Force on Juvenile Justice, and the Commission to Study the Residential Placement of Children.
Despite the need for adoptive families, many people are reluctant to adopt children from foster care, particularly older children.
“Lots of children have been harmed greatly and suffered a lot of trauma. So it takes a special kind of people to take those kinds of children,” Johnson said.
He added that many families prefer to adopt younger children, which he stressed was perfectly fine, but the greater difficulty lies in getting older children adopted.
The judge also appealed to the public to open up their homes to children in need.
“There is a need for foster care families and adoptive families throughout the state. In West Virginia we have about 1000 children eligible for adoption right now,” he said.
Anyone interested in adopting a child from foster care can call Frameworks of Mission WV at 1-866-CALL-MWV or visit http://missionwv.org/frameworks/waiting-children/ or http://www.wvdhhr.org/oss/adoption/wv_children.asp.
