Mission: Vulnerable Children
When we say "vulnerable children," we speak with intentional clarity. We specifically define vulnerable children as those who are older, have special needs, or are part of a sibling group.—children who often face the greatest obstacles to adoption and who are most likely to be overlooked. Our focus is narrow by design. These children need advocates. They need champions. They need families willing to say "yes" despite the challenges, and they need communities willing to help carry the financial and emotional weight of that yes.
Older Children
By focusing on older children we are equipping families to serve the most marginalized. For statistical reference, in the US 5% of foster care adoptions are of children between the ages of 13-17, yet they make up 22% of children in care*. Without families willing to stand for older children, these are the ones prime for recruitment into gangs, violence, sex trafficking, and repeating poverty cycles once they age out of the system at 18 years old. In other countries, the aging-out threshold can be as low as 16 (Ukraine) or 14 (China), narrowing the gap to provide children the proper foundations for adulthood.
Special Needs
In adoption the term “Special Needs” can be broad and encompasses many of the following groups: medical or physical disabilities (cleft palate, HIV+, cerebral palsy, etc.), developmental delays, older age (+5), belonging to a sibling group, behavioral or emotional challenges from trauma or institutionalization. At the 35Kcampaign, we narrow this definition to those with medical, physical, developmental, or behavioral needs. This helps us specifically narrow in on providing care to children who need extra support through childhood. If we can support a family through funding their adoption, then we believe they will have more resources to put towards caring for the child’s follow up needs.
Sibling Groups
Our heart for sibling groups is to keep families together. Most everyone can naturally understand the desire to maintain unity between siblings even when the parental relationship has been lost. A unique way the 35Kcampaign has supported this over the years is by recognizing: not all sibling relationships are built on the basis of blood kinship. In fact, the 35Kcampaign has supported nearly half a dozen families returning to orphanages in a foreign country to adopt a second child who was a “sibling like” connection to the first child they adopted, and many of the families did not know about the relationship until they picked up their first child and saw how deeply they were connected to their “brother” or “sister” in the orphanage.