The iconic image of the family continues to rapidly shift away from June and Ward Cleaver of the 1950s into a diverse array of family units.At the forefront of the family evolution locally is Family Builders by Adoption. Now in its 30th year, the $2.5 million dollar foster care and adoption agency is expanding at lightning speed with the goal of finding homes for more than 77,500 youth in foster care in California. An estimated 10,000 of those children reside in the nine Bay Area counties, with 45 percent of these youth living in San Francisco and Alameda counties.
Family Builders is now San Francisco's exclusive foster care adoption agency and is in the process of opening a new office in San Francisco. The nearly $600,000 contract with San Francisco's Human Service Agency allows Family Builders to broaden its work to prepare families to permanently foster or adopt children.
"San Francisco is a leader, not because we're unique, but because we realize that all families are unique in their own way," said Steve Kawa, former chief of staff for Mayor Gavin Newsom. "In the 21st century a family is defined by the people living together."
Kawa and his partner Dan Henkle, who have two adopted children, were recognized by the agency at its anniversary luncheon February 2.
Family Builders Executive Director Jill Jacobs told the Bay Area Reporter that San Francisco's agencies that help children are making a concentrated effort to get kids out of long-term foster care and into homes. Family Builders is recognized as a leader in LGBT and older-children foster care and adoption.
Now, Family Builders is ramping up its program.
"We are building families in different ways and with children of different ages," said Supervisor Bevan Dufty, who is assisting with finding a location for Family Builders' new office. "It's wonderful for San Francisco and for children."
The agency also took over adoption services in the city last year when Catholic Charities ended its direct adoption program after concerns were raised by church leaders – including Pope Benedict XVI – that same-sex people were allowed to adopt children.
The Vatican ordered Catholic Charities not to place children in homes with LGBT parents. Under the compromise that was reached last summer, Catholic Charities makes no decisions about child placement and is thus not in a position of directly condoning what the Catholic Church does not support. The move also does not place the organization in violation of local non-discrimination laws.
Catholic Charities had provided adoption services for 150 years.
Utilizing Family Builders' online adoption matching service, California Kids Connection, both agencies realized that they could provide the staff to screen potential families, but Catholic Charities would not directly place kids into homes.
"It's so today, so Match.com," said Patricia Evans, director of communications for Catholic Charities. "To have the visuals with the kids with their stories, it's a perfect way for people to get to know the kinds of kids that are available in the foster care system."
Catholic Charities is assisting with expansion of California Kids Connection through core funds up to an estimated $250,000 annually. It will provide the adoption connection staff, which will allow it to increase the number of adoptions by three or four times the number they previously were able to place.
Since October 2006, when Catholic Charities and Family Builders launched the partnership, an estimated 10 kids are in the process of having permanent homes.
"I have this real passion and this real compulsion to get as many kids out of the system and into families as I can," said Jacobs. "It gives us the resources to do that."
Jacobs has a keen eye for seeing a way to meet children's needs. Last March, Family Builders launched "No Place Like Home," a program to find LGBT foster families or queer-friendly homes for foster youth who are out or questioning their sexuality.
Exact figures for how many queer youth are in the foster care system are unavailable. Experts estimate that it could be between 10 and 15 percent. Using that estimate, there could be 4,500 LGBT foster youth living in the Bay Area alone, with a potential 675 of those in San Francisco and Alameda counties.
"A lot of these organizations don't know what to do with these kids," said Jacobs. "They literally don't know what to do with a transgender kid or a gay kid."
Due to a lack of understanding and services that are sensitive to queer kids' needs, many of the children can end up in trouble or homeless. Family Builders is continuing to seek homes for these queer kids to provide them the love and support that they need.
"We are really talking about our community's kids ... that queer kid should be able to find love," said Dufty.
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