Carol Huttar: Hi, my name is Carol Huttar and I am the Director for the project Wait No Longer of the Barker Foundation. Project Wait No Longer seeks to find permanent home for children who are in the foster care system between the age of 6 and 17 years old. The program was originally started with the belief that the every child deserves a loving and safe family in which they thrive. During this segment, I will be talking about how you can begin the process to adopt an older child from the foster care system.

Host: Why is there a need for older child adoption?

Carol Huttar: Well, currently in the United States alone there are over 500,000 children who are in the foster care system and these children are in foster care system due to no faults of their own and they are all looking and desiring permanent loving families. Most of the children in foster care are African American youth, they are older between the age of that 6 and 17 years old and many have siblings, many have special needs and but they are all unique and have a lot of potential and strength that will really thrive in the right family.