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Strengthen sign order

welcome back to news watch on Wednesday the President signed an executive order to strengthen child welfare programs in the US it'll provide more support for adoption programs foster care families and families at risk joining us now with more is Kimberly off it's she's the national foster care and adoption director for Bethany Christian services and she has adopted four children from the foster care system welcome Kimberly thank you glad to be here first of all you've been working during this pandemic to continue placing children with foster care parents and adoptive parents how is Kovan 19 affected your work who the greatest impact that they were that we are seeing right now is a delay in reunification and a decrease in families willing to serve as foster parents kovat truly has had a devastating impact on our reunification efforts of those children whose parents have worked so hard to regain legal and physical custody of your of their children many biological families have lost their income their housing and support court proceedings were delayed and in-person visits were not possible and as an organization we've just had to pivot recruiting families willing to open up their homes to new children in the middle of a pandemic has been understandably difficult but it hasn't been impossible so we've been hosting virtual information meetings and trainings and even support groups for our foster and adoptive families and we know that there are more than 400,000 kids in the foster care system in that 20,000 children aged out of the system every year finding themselves at age 18 with no permanent family many of them go on to college but then have become homeless during the pandemic as campuses have closed what can you tell us about these kids see we've all seen the statistics of what happens when children age out of the foster care system too many of them become instantly homeless when they age out when they turn 18 and then within two years these children can become homeless like we said on drugs or incarcerated where yet another system the criminal justice system is raising them and then we have we're right in the middle pandemic and you see youth like you said who worked so hard to enter college and then the dorms closed so now what it's so important as we look at the changes that have been proposed in this executive order it is so critical improving those resources that were providing here in support for kinship care and older youth exiting foster care is vital the president's executive order aims to provide more resources for caregivers including trauma-informed training how will this help the kids oh the trauma for training definitely will help the kids because our parents will have a better understanding of what the impact of trauma will be on the children kids who enter foster care enter foster care because of abuse and neglect and there are behaviors that they display comes and stems from their trauma and so if we have families who understand trauma then they can keep these children safe that can bring them to healing and wholeness within their home and then you'll see more of a better transition in the families and safety and security with those children the executive order also will strengthen partnerships I understand between state agencies and public-private and faith-based organizations like Bethany what are you hoping to see happen well I'm telling you this we definitely applaud the executive orders approach because it underscores the need for all groups government States nonprofit partners faith communities and families to work better together for the sake of vulnerable children one sector of society can't meet this need on its own it takes all of us working together so we're very very excited about this and grateful for the opportunity to continue working with them on that all right Kimberly offered with Bethany Christian services thank you for your time and also thank you for your efforts including adopting for children yourself thank you blessings to