The Adoption Exchange is a not-for-profit organization that finds "forever families" for local children waiting to be adopted. With a growing office in Las Vegas, as well as the ability to serve Northern Nevada, it has a simple mission: to connect children in the foster care system with qualified families who want to adopt them.
It focuses on recruiting local families for children who have survived abuse and neglect, providing training and education to professionals who work in the field and providing information and support to families who adopt. It also offers classes on adoption and a lending library offering free literature on the subject.
Since it was founded in 1983, The Adoption Exchange has helped nearly 4,600 children nationwide – including hundreds in Nevada – find permanent homes.
"The Adoption Exchange is focused on the hard-to-adopt children," said Assistant Clark County Manager Virginia Valentine, a member of the organization’s Nevada Advisory Committee. "Adoption is the best chance these children have to be cared for, to have a family, to just lead a normal life."
Like other supporters, Valentine speaks from personal experience. As the parent of an adopted daughter, she said she has learned firsthand that "there’s a direct correlation between permanence and success." She said children who move from one foster home to another are more likely to have problems as adults, "and society pays for those problems through the justice system and the welfare system."
Clark County District Judge Nancy Saitta, who chairs The Adoption Exchange’s Nevada Advisory Committee, sees what can happen when children grow up lacking a family foundation. Saitta, who was adopted as a child, was instrumental in opening the organization’s Nevada office in January of 2000. Since then, she has led the group’s growth, while watching the number of children needing its services soar.
In Clark County alone, Saitta said, more than 2,300 children are in foster care, with hundreds ready to be adopted at any given time. The number of local children needing shelter is increasing by nearly 30 percent per year. The need in Northern Nevada is also growing.
To spread the word, and to raise funds to support its services, The Adoption Exchange hosts an annual golf tournament and a Monopoly-themed fundraising event.
It also partners with Clark County’s Department of Family Services and other local adoption and government agencies to present an annual Adoption Fair. This year’s fair will be held Saturday, Nov. 4, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Clark County Government Center in downtown Las Vegas. The ninth annual event is free and open to the public, offering food, fun and games for children, along with education for prospective parents.
Throughout November at the Clark County Government Center, prospective parents can visit the Nevada Heart Gallery, a traveling exhibit of compelling portraits featuring dozens of local children who are waiting for families.
The Adoption Exchange also makes connections through "Wednesday’s Child," a television news segment on adoption that airs each Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. on KLAS-TV Channel 8 in Las Vegas.
By helping children find families, supporters say the charity also saves Nevada taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. That’s based on national statistics showing state taxpayers spend an average of $20,000 per year to care for each child in the foster care system.
The Adoption Exchange
333 N Rancho Dr, Ste 660
Las Vegas, NV 89106
(702) 436-6335
nevada@adoptex.org
www.adoptex.org/nv_office.htm
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