Written By: Helena
Edited By: Natalie

 

View Waiting Children

When looking through ways to support children within the foster care system in Travis County it does not take long to stumble across the searching system embedded in these websites. Not only can you search by a child’s specific name, but you can also get as specific as race and each specific special need a child could possibly have. 

Texas Department of Family and Protective Services Children Search

At first glance this brings immeasurable sadness to the viewer; these dozens of children are being displayed. While continuing to scroll through though, sadness quickly turns into an intense concern for these children. Not only are their pictures being displayed publicly, but each profile also goes into great detail about these children. This includes Name, age, race, ethnicity, region, and a whole about ‘me’ section where the children are set to describe themselves.

An example of a child’s profile

Unfortunately, the first thing that comes to mind when scrolling through these individual profiles when I see this, is the comparison of an animal foster care system. APA has a similar system of being able to scroll through their animals and search by specific criteria for you. It truly is a dissatisfying feeling to read these websites and recognize that their being better catered towards the adopter/foster, instead of the actual children directly involved. 

Austin Pet’s Alive’s (APA) animal profile example

 

Better Advocacy

All I see when I look through these websites is how urgent it is for these children to need better ways to be advocated for. A reimagination of what these websites show would merely be the first step. 

 

These websites should be focused on the care and betterment of the children it’s made for, at the very least more than the focus of merely appealing to anyone willing to foster them. Protecting their safety should be the priority rather than posting a picture of them with their first name and what region of the county they live in for the public.

 

An ideal candidate for a website would show a child’s individuality better than a three-sentence self-description. In other words, who at 15 years old could perfectly encapsulate their whole personality, let alone with the kind of pressure of knowing it’ll go on your adoption page? These children should be under the care of those who care about them, and value their individuality while valuing to protect their identity. Is a picture of these children necessary? 

 

Why not you…Why not me?

If anyone should be personally focused on these websites, it should be specifically the people looking to adopt. If the family’s main goal is focused on choosing the ‘cutest, youngest child,’ then these families should receive further evaluation, to honor the children’s safety. There are little to no evaluation steps listed out on these websites, merely “why not you?” and an immediate link to the children’s rosters. 

 

The definition of adoption is, “the action or fact of legally taking another’s a child and bringing it up as one’s own.”. The focus is solely on the child, not what the child looks like, but merely the child being brought up and cared for. These websites need to reflect these facts, that these children are not just 1 out of 900 on the page, but are each an individual life with their amazing personality and capable of being a loving child. 

An example of a child’s profile from The Heart Gallery of Central Texas

References

https://heartgallerytexas.com/gallery/criselda/

https://www.dfps.state.tx.us/Adoption_and_Foster_Care/Get_Started/Information_Meetings/07.asp