For Teen's Adoption Dream, It's Never Too Late

Marseeda Reed and her adopted son Damien Harris-Reed, 18, who came to the family six years ago as a foster child and was officially adopted when he was 17 years old. (Lois Raimondo - Washington Post)

Reed, 42 and a photo technician, said she grew up in a large family and knew she wanted one in her Prince George's County home.

It wasn't an easy road.

The foster kids were scarred from years of neglect and the uncertainty of bouncing around foster care.

"They were hoarders. I used to find chicken bones in bathroom drawers and food tucked away everywhere," said Reed, who buys huge boxes of food from Costco to assure them that groceries are abundant.

The first time she adopted, it was a more typical arrangement. The boy was just a year old, a babbling, fat and happy baby and one of 285 adopted in the District that year, according to the Child and Family Services Agency. There were 387 children adopted in 2004, 314 in 2005, 182 in 2006, 155 in 2007 and 112 this year.

"A few years ago, children were coming in for adoptions typically as babies or infants and kids within the age range of 6 to 9," Josey-Herring said. "Over the last couple of years, we see kids who are coming in as teenagers. They have been living in circumstances that are not safe for a very long period of time."

The babies are quickly adopted, but the number of older foster children is still high, Judy Meltzer said in a report she issued as the court-appointed monitor of the Child and Family Services Agency.

There is "an extraordinarily high number of children in CFSA's custody who are assigned a permanency goal of Another Planned Living Arrangement," which means they will simply "age out" of the system, Meltzer wrote in a September letter to the court.

And because of the federal Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008, enacted last month, families will receive monthly adoption incentives as high as $800 for foster children such as Damien, who have special needs and are part of a sibling group, and families will continue to receive the payments until the children turn 21.

"If you think about it, when most of us graduated and went to college, we were still calling our parents when our cars broke down, we overspent or we just needed somebody who would hold our confidence," Josey-Herring said. "Kids need adults in their lives that are going to be there for them, even as they turn 18."