The New Brunswick Adoption Foundation is highlighting the need to adopt children in provincial care in a series of events called “Everybody’s Children”.
More than 440 children are currently without permanent families in the province.
Ten-year-old Colin Kennedy Robichaud, an adoptee who was a speaker at the Moncton event, says he didn’t know what a normal family was until his parents adopted him four years ago.
“I did not know that spending hours upon hours in my room alone was not normal. I did not know that moving from house to house was not normal. I did not know that eating one meal a day was not normal,” he says.
The foundation has placed an emphasis on adopting older children since more than 60 percent of children in provincial care are over the age of 11.
Figures from the foundation also show that about 90 young people age out of foster care every year before getting adopted and stats show that while some beat the odds, most will face a difficult future.
