Rich Buley-Neumar

Behavior

Adoptions are down

I work for a small not-for-profit adoption agency that specializes in placing children from the foster care into adoptive homes. We also place infants, and do services for people adopting internationally. The phones had slowed recently, and now have all but stopped ringing. We can only guess that people are not willing to take the risk of building a family through adoption when they can't be sure they will have incomes... or even homes. With the budget cuts in New York State, we are concerned about the necessary services that children in care receive, but even more that, they may be missing out on the one thing they need most - a loving "forever family" - because people are afraid it is too much of a financial risk right now to adopt.