Children in Kansas, Missouri walk out of courts with families of their own

People don’t usually beam in courtrooms.

But the juvenile attorneys, child care service managers and court clerks couldn’t wipe the grins off their faces Friday at Jackson County Family Court.

“I’m so happy to have something happy related to law,” an attorney said to a court clerk who wished out loud that it could be National Adoption Day every day as the group prepared for the families to come in.

Eighteen families adopted 26 children in Jackson County on Friday as both Kansas and Missouri recognized National Adoption Day to call attention to children who want and need to be adopted.

In Kansas, KVC Health Systems, a private nonprofit that helps the state place children in need, will assist in the adoptions of nearly 60 children throughout the state this weekend, said Jenny Kutz, director of communications.

The adoptions of eight children were finalized in Wyandotte County on Friday. An additional 33 adoptions were expected to be completed Saturday in Topeka and Olathe.

Among the parents officially offering a child a “forever family” in Jackson County were Andrew and Amanda Erickson. They officially adopted Poppy Rya, a toddler who wore brown fringe boots, a polka-dotted dress and a hot pink sweater to her big day.

“We went into this wanting to foster to adopt,” Amanda Erickson said. The family just didn’t expect they would end up taking care of a child so young — the Ericksons had originally requested a 6-year-old, closer in age to their 9-year-old daughter, Piper.

Poppy came into the Ericksons’ lives in April 2015 from a neonatal intensive care unit, Amanda Erickson said, and although taking care of an infant felt like “they were starting all over again,” Poppy felt like part of the family.

More than 6,700 children are considered in foster care in the state of Kansas, compared to 5,300 in 2012. The number of children awaiting adoptions — kids whose parents have had their rights terminated and are sometimes already in the process of being adopted — has risen from 850 to 1,180 in the same time span.

In Kansas, the number of children with no current adoption options is about 350 per month.

Locally, Wyandotte and Johnson counties have seen small drops in the number of children needing adoption since last year. Yet the number of kids in foster care there has averaged 502 and 579, respectively, in the past five years.

Jackson County reports roughly 1,800 foster care children currently in the system, with roughly 500 eligible for adoption.

State figures from the Missouri Department of Social Services were not immediately available.

In recent years, child advocates have made strides to call attention to the need for older foster children to be adopted. Last year, 60 area teenagers aged out of the system without family support after turning 18.

Abbigail DeJarnette, 16, wore blue Chuck Taylors, jeans and an NYPD T-shirt as she spoke about her adoptive experience as the guest speaker at the Jackson County ceremony.

The Liberty High School student was adopted by her foster mom, Christina DeJarnette, in August after living with DeJarnette for two years.

The teen said she was shy at first and angry when she came to live with Christina DeJarnette. She had spent time with various relatives after being removed from her mother’s care and had most recently lived with an aunt and uncle who were devastated they they couldn’t afford to keep her.

“It made it easier to get through my trauma,” Abbigail DeJarnette said about finding a permanent home. “Having a stable place helps me work through my anger, and it makes me feel safe.”

There is a different kind of bonding that occurs when a teenager comes to live in your home, said Christina DeJarnette, who is a foster mom for several other children.

“It’s a different learning curve because they’ve already had so much experience with life,” she said. “But you have less time, so you try to speed up the process. ... She’s got to choose me as much as I choose her.”

Perhaps surprisingly, it was their hardest moments working through disagreements that made it clear that they were a good match, Christina DeJarnette said.

Now, Abbigail DeJarnette talks more about dreams. She wears the NYPD shirt because she has decided to become a police officer to help “people get justice they deserve.” Someday, she hopes to be a homicide detective.

She might start here, Abbigail DeJarnette said, then move on to New York City, a place she has never been but plans on seeing.

This story was originally published November 18, 2016 at 5:32 PM with the headline "Children in Kansas, Missouri walk out of courts with families of their own."