Christiansburg, Va. – The pandemic slowed many things down including local adoptions. The courts closed in the beginning but the need never went away.
Sadie Steele, an adoption specialist for DePaul Community Resources, said if anything, the adoption need increased over the last eight months.
She helps local agencies finalize adoptions -- with paperwork, support and resources throughout the process.
“With COVID, it makes things a lot more difficult. The process with court has been extremely slowed down. Courts were shut down for quite a while,” said Steele. “You would hope that every kid knows that they are loved by someone but when a family comes in and holds them and says ‘I’m not going anywhere’ and that final order is signed making them a family, there’s just nothing that beats that.”
She says like everyone else they’ve gotten creative doing visits with families during the adoption process on their front porch or in the yard. They’ve done a lot of virtual visits as well.
Steele says they’ve done more than 60 adoptions since March.
If you have questions about foster care/adoption, contact DePaul Community Resources here.
There are more than 700 children who are ready for foster to adoption in Virginia. They are ready to find a permanent and loving forever family. 10 News is profiling one child who needs a home every day at 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. in 30 Days of Hope. The children are all ages and races and were put into foster care due to no fault of their own. 2020 marks the fourth year 10 News is doing this series.