Teens in Foster Care Hold Out Hope for Adoption

June 2, 2006— -- Ruben experienced rejection early in his life when his father left his mother and his four siblings.

Then he and his siblings were taken away from their mother because of neglect. Three of Ruben's siblings were adopted together, and an older sister is now an adult who has aged out of the system.

Ruben is the only one left in the foster-care system, and he is alone. The feeling of repeated rejection has devastated him.

"I don't really know how to explain it," Ruben, now 18, said. "It hurts a lot to be rejected."

Some experts say that repeated rejection makes children less optimistic about prospective families and their future.

"When kids get rejected, it just means that next time, when a family comes forward, they're less likely to trust that it's going to work out," said Elana Mesch, Ruben's social worker.

Older children like Ruben are the hardest to remove from the foster-care system. Many children who reach their teens never get adopted.

"People are sort of surprised that an 18-year-old would still want a family, and that's what I hope Ruben would help people to understand -- that you're not too old for a family," Mesch said.

Since he entered foster care 10 years ago, Ruben has lived in 10 different homes and attended 11 different schools.

"As I've been moved from home to home, I never got comfortable," Ruben said. "I never found a place to say I'm home."

In the absence of stable, loving homes, one alternative for foster children is mentoring. Through the AdoptMent program, which is based in New York City, foster children meet once a week with mentors who were once foster kids themselves.

"We see grades go up. We see behavioral changes," said April Dinnywood, founder of the AdoptMent. "We see a lot more sharing of feelings."

Former foster child Doug Anderson just retired as an executive vice president at a major investment firm, and he now dedicates his time to mentoring other foster children in the program.

"I ate out of a garbage can as a child and ended up being an executive vice president on Wall Street," Anderson said. "You can do it. These kids need someone to let them know that they can succeed. They need a little help, a little push, someone other than the system."