Just chatting with Rita Soronen from the Dave Thomas Foundation

How exciting it is to be offered the opportunity to interview you personally, Mrs. Soronen. I’m excited to hear from you! Can you tell me what motivated you and how you decided to reach out to me for an interview?

First, thank you for this wonderful opportunity to participate in your blog! I am in awe of your personal commitment to this conversation. The information that you share, from your own experiences, and your recognition of how life changing adoption is for everyone involved is so important. By educating both those families who are thinking about adoption, and engaging others in the conversation, you help drive the notion that every waiting child, no matter where they live, what they have experienced or who they are as unique individuals, deserves our every effort to assure them a family and a home.

The Dave Thomas Foundation has been known as the voice of foster care adoption for years. Your mission, in fact, is to “dramatically increase the number of adoptions of waiting children from North America’s foster care systems.” While international adoptions have been steadily declining in recent years, foster care adoptions have been increasing. What do you believe had contributed to this increase?

The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption is indeed singularly focused, by mission and board policy, on the children in foster care waiting to be adopted, with a special emphasis on older youth, children with special needs, children in sibling groups and those most at risk of aging out of care without the family we promised. We grieve for any child who lives without a permanent family, no matter what border defines their home. But by driving toward the focus of foster care adoption, as a national nonprofit public charity, we can streamline our resources, work toward aggressive and reachable goals and make sure the children in our own backyards are not left with a message that we have forgotten about them.

For more than 20 years now, the Foundation has worked two parallel tracks – increasing the national awareness of and conversation around foster care adoption, and aggressively working to increase adoptions from foster care. We have grown signature service programs, demanded evidence-based best practices and supported national policy that pays attention to our youth in care. None of this work is done alone or in a vacuum. We are so grateful for the national partnerships with individuals, adoption organizations, corporations, research and advocacy groups, and I fervently believe it has been that team effort that has helped to increase foster care adoptions.

The Dave Thomas Foundation focuses on waiting children in North America with the vision that “every child will have a permanent home and a loving family.” As you know, there are millions of waiting children all over the world, many in countries without formal foster care systems like our own. What is your opinion of international adoption?

The challenges of international adoption are many and deep; of course, the rewards of a family formed are equally rich. Families who choose international adoption as the course to create or expand their family clearly understand the desperate need of the millions of orphans worldwide and must navigate erratic border accessibility, often incomplete information on the health and backgrounds of children, potential fraud, elevated costs to adopt and agencies and nations working to comply within the Hague Convention. Unfortunately, as difficult as it is for the adults, the negative consequences for the children who linger in orphanages or on the streets are simply heartbreaking.

I am unshakable in my belief that we must work to make the world safe for every child, that we must support families to care for their children, and for those families who cannot, we must demand that whether within their country of origin, or through an international border of adoption, we must ensure the safety, love and permanence of home – not for some of the children, but all of the children.

What challenges have you personally faced as an advocate for abused, neglected, and vulnerable children for over 25 years? I imagine you’ve had faced some!

I am blessed to do this work each and every day. My personal challenge is to drive a national value system that cherishes childhood, honors and supports families as the core of any great society, and makes fiscal decisions with the health, safety and well-being of their children as the top priority. When that is the case, there will be fewer orphanages, limited numbers of youth on the streets and at-risk, and nations of children who live with joy, rather than suffering.

There are many families who have a heart for adoption who recognize the beauty from ashes adoption can be. To those interested in serving, helping, and/or advocating (who will likely never become CEO of a major foundation! :) ), what advice would you give them?

The only thing that we all share is a childhood. So if each of us simply took a moment to remember a time, as a child, that we were alone, or afraid, or feeling hurt or sad, we would know that there is so much more to do for the children of the world.

It is the simple acts – learning about abused, neglected or abandoned children; reaching out to a child in need; donating to an organization that helps the most vulnerable; engaging a community of faith; calling a Congressional member – that can make a world of difference for our children. And for those interested in adopting, we would be delighted to talk with them (800-ASK-DTFA), offer free resources and connect them on the path – domestic or international – to bring a child into their family while they restore their hope for family and home.

I would be honored to have your readers follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and my blog, and always look forward to a good old fashioned phone call! Thank you so much for all that you do and this opportunity to chat!

I have been amazed lately how little it takes to be impactful in people’s lives. We don’t have to set out to change the world through a foundation; we just have to do the next thing through simply saying yes to God’s call right in front of us. Thank you for doing that yourself over the last 25 years!