Kids Are Waiting: Fix Foster Care Now is a national campaign dedicated to ensuring that all children in foster care have the safe, permanent families they deserve by reforming the federal financing structure that governs our foster care system.

The Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care, a nonpartisan, blue-ribbon panel of experienced legislators, child welfare administrators, family service providers, judges, foster and adoptive parents, and former foster youth, noted that the majority of federal child welfare dollars can be accessed only after a child has been removed from his home or family and placed in foster care.  The financing structure currently in place contributes to an over-reliance on the use of foster care rather than alternative services that might better meet the needs of at risk children and families. As a result, some children may be separated from their families when they might have been able to safely stay together, and other children may languish in the system far too long; some youth leave foster care at about age 18 without ever having found a safe, permanent family of their own.  Financing reform could help prevent the need for foster care for some children, decrease the length of stay in the system for those who must enter, and help other children leave foster care more quickly to join a safe, permanent family through reunification, adoption, or guardianship.

The Kids Are Waiting campaign raises awareness about the need for federal foster care financing reform through research, outreach, and advocacy. The campaign is a collaboration of more than 20 leading child welfare, adoption, family, judicial, and other organizations. Led by The Pew Charitable Trusts, an ever-growing number of local, state and national partners are working together so that our most vulnerable children don't spend their childhoods waiting for the families they deserve. For more information visit www.kidsarewaiting.org

If you are interested in adopting a child from the US foster care system, you may want to visit Adopt US Kids for more information.