About
While Elevate originated in Des Moines, there are now chapters throughout the state of Iowa. Locations of chapters can be found on the Elevate website.
Elevate's activities include numerous types of advocacy. This includes training and empowering youth to advocate for themselves and others, educating legislators and other decision makers, developing partnerships to help youth successfully age out of foster care and encouraging others to open their homes to foster teens.
Advocacy is an activity by an individual or group that aims to influence decisions within political, economic, and social systems and institutions. Advocacy includes activities and publications to influence public policy, laws and budgets by using facts, their relationships, the media, and messaging to educate government officials and the public. Advocacy can include many activities that a person or organization undertakes including media campaigns, public speaking, commissioning and publishing research. Lobbying is a form of advocacy where a direct approach is made to legislators on a specific issue or specific piece of legislation. Research has started to address how advocacy groups in the United States and Canada are using social media to facilitate civic engagement and collective action.
Membership includes current and former foster youth, adoptees from the foster care system and the biological children of foster and adoptive parents. Foster care alumni, social workers, foster and adoptive parents and juvenile attorneys function as supports for the group, but the majority of the decisions are made by the members or their governing council, the ECC. The ECC is composed of members elected by their peers.
Elevate is best known for personal stories and passionate speakers, but also includes artwork, poetry and other writing. Any foster or adopted person or the child of foster or adoptive parents over the age of 7 can become an artist for Elevate and any one in these categories over the age of 13 can become a poet, speaker or writer for Elevate.
Elevate has had members speak at a number of different events around the country including dozens of events within the state of Iowa, and events in Seattle, Washington; San Antonio, Texas; Washington DC; St. Louis, Missouri; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Columbus, Ohio and Atlanta, Georgia.
Iowa is a state in the Midwestern United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states; Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to the east, Missouri to the south, Nebraska to the west, South Dakota to the northwest, and Minnesota to the north.
Rachel M. Ewald is the founder and chairwoman of Foster Care Support Foundation, Inc. The Foster Care Support Foundation FCSF is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that provides clothing, equipment, and toys to at least 3000 foster and displaced children throughout the state of Georgia annually. The services are free for those raised on basic state per-diem and for grandparents and relatives raising their grandchildren, nieces or nephews without the biological parent/s present in the home. In 1996, Ewald began collecting and distributing clothing and toy donations from neighbors to give to local foster children in need. The program and need grew quickly and the Foundation was incorporated in 2000 and has provided for over 48,000 children since its incorporation. Ewald, a [foster parent] herself of fourteen years to over 50 children and mother of four biological children, understood the difficulty of raising a child on fifty to seventy five cents per hour. The center allows for more foster parents to afford to care for state children, while also allowing the children to acquire their own clothes, toys, and be much like any other child after losing everything when pulled from their biological homes. The organization's donation/distribution center, located at 115 Mansell Place in Roswell GA is set up like a retail store and is fully stocked with clothing, toys, bikes, highchairs, and other necessities, where foster parents throughout the state can come, by appointment, and shop for free. Rachel Ewald has also written a set of transition guidelines "Healthy Children, Healthy Adults" for foster care and adoption, with the intent of reducing disruption and trauma in foster and adoptive home and when reunifying children with their biological families.
In the United States, adoption is permanently placing a minor with a parent or parents other than the birth parents.
Interracial adoption refers to the act of placing a child of one racial or ethnic group with adoptive parents of another racial or ethnic group.
Boys & Girls Aid is a non-profit organization that provides services to children in crisis in the state of Oregon, United States.
The Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (MSPCC) is a non-governmental charitable organization with offices in Boston and throughout Massachusetts which seeks to strengthen families and prevent child abuse through essential child welfare and mental health treatment and effective public advocacy.
Special needs is a term used in clinical diagnostic and functional development to describe individuals who require assistance for disabilities that may be medical, mental, or psychological. Guidelines for clinical diagnosis are given in both the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and the International Classification of Diseases 9th edition. Special needs can range from people with autism, cerebral palsy, down syndrome, dyslexia, blindness, ADHD, and cystic fibrosis. They can also include cleft lips and/or palates, port-wine stains, and missing limbs. The types of special needs vary in severity, and a student with a special need is classified as being a severe case when the students IQ is between 20 and 35. These students typically need assistance in school, and have different services provided for them to succeed in a different setting.
The Child and Family Services Reviews (CFSR) are conducted by the Children's Bureau, within the United States Department of Health and Human Services, to help States improve safety, permanency, and well-being outcomes for children and families who receive services through the child welfare system. The Bureau conducts the reviews to ensure conformity with federal child welfare requirements, to determine what is actually happening to children and families in child welfare services, and to assist states in helping children and families achieve positive outcomes. The CFSRs monitor States' conformity with the requirements of title IV-B of the Social Security Act. The first round of reviews took place between 2000 and 2004 and the second round took place between 2007 and 2010. In both rounds, all States were required to implement Program Improvement Plans (PIPs) as part of the review process. The third round of CFSRs took place between 2015 and 2018; a complete aggregate report of those findings has yet to be released.
An adoption tax credit is a tax credit offered to adoptive parents to encourage adoption. Section 36C of the United States Internal Revenue code offers a credit for “qualified adoption expenses” paid or incurred by individual taxpayers.
Madam Indranee Elizabeth Nadisen is a Singaporean social work volunteer on child protection, and served as a foster mother to abandoned, abused and neglected children under the Fostering Scheme by the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS). She is also the longest serving foster mother of the program, and also holds the national record of having looked after 43 children in her 32 years' as a foster mother. Nadisen is recognised as the role model and the icon of the Fostering Scheme.
The Everychild Foundation is a private philanthropic foundation based in Pacific Palisades, California. It awards a single grant of up to $1 million each year to a non-profit organization within Los Angeles County that helps children affected by disease, abuse, neglect, poverty or disability. The Foundation has awarded more than $15 million in grants that served over 1 million Los Angeles children.
The Des Moines Public Library (DMPL) is the public library system for the city of Des Moines, Iowa. It is the largest public library system in the state of Iowa, with a collection of 552,576 items housed at six locations.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to adoption:
Utah Foster Care (UFC), formerly "Utah Foster Care Foundation" is a non-profit organization that provides foster families for the State of Utah. Since its founding, UFC has played a role in caring for young children who have been subjected to abuse, neglect, and other hardships by their caretakers. As of 2013, at any given time in Utah, there are about 2,700 children experiencing crisis in the home who are in need of foster care. Nearly half of all cases involve substance abuse by biological parents. Given the difficult circumstances and special needs of these children, UFC's goal is to find and prepare foster parents to meet those needs.
National Foster Care Month is observed in the United States during the month of May every year. It began with President Ronald Reagan in 1988. Since 1988, National Foster Care Month continues to be recognized and celebrated.
This article on refers to Adoption within the Philippine context. For the general term, see Adoption.
David Meade is an American politician and a Republican member of the Kentucky House of Representatives representing District 80 since January 8, 2013. His legislative district includes Lincoln County and part of Pulaski County. Meade serves as Speaker Pro-Tempore of the Kentucky House of Representatives, a constitutional office and the second-highest position in the 100-member legislative chamber.
The Preventing Sex Trafficking and Strengthening Families Act is a US bill that would address federal adoption incentives and would amend the Social Security Act (SSA) to require the state plan for foster care and adoption assistance to demonstrate that the state agency has developed policies and procedures with respect to the children it is working, and which are (possibly) a victim of sex trafficking or a severe form of trafficking in persons. The bill furthermore requires states to implement the 2008 UIFSA version, which is required so the 2007 Hague Maintenance Convention can be ratified by the US.
