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CPS: More Foster Children Finding Forever Families
CPS: More Foster Children Finding Forever Families 2/23/13
Tatum Guinn
CBS 7 News Reporter
February 23, 2013
tguinn@cbs7.com
Odessa - More west Texas children in the foster care system are finding forever homes according to Child Protective Services.
CBS 7 spent the afternoon with a family who adopted their two foster children.
The Mathis family have had a brother sister pair for just over two years.
They're just one of many families who have opened their hearts and homes to children who otherwise would have no place to go.
Samantha is a sassy two year old who is a daddy's girl. Four-year-old Mark is a rambunctious kid who keeps his parents busy. Togther all four of them make up the Mathis family. It's been the four of them for just over two years.
"CPS needed an emergency placement and we were one of the only families in the area available to take them," mom Jamie Mathis said. "Whenever they first came to us in the middle of the night. We didn't know that they were ultimately going to be our children."
Sixteen months later, Samantha and mark were theirs to keep. They were one of 15 families who officially adopted in one day.
In the fiscal year of 2012, 129 foster children were adopted. In this year there have been 89 adoptions so far, according to CPS.
"We grew attached to them and ultimately it was our goal to adopt," Mathis said. "They had to move us to a different courtroom to accommodate us."
Mathis says she and her husband struggled with infertility for several years and decided adoption was how they wanted to start their family.
"We both decided early on that there was no point in fighting the issue when there were children out there that needed homes," she said.
Mathis hopes more families like hers will step up and that every child will have a forever home.
"Everybody deserves a chance. Everybody deserves to be loved and have a home," she said.
For more information on foster care and adoptions, click here.