Thousands of children lived in the streets of New York.  Social reformers estimated over 10,000 "vagrant" children lived in Manhattan.  In an effort to help these children, Charles Loring Brace developed an informal permanency placement plan which came to be known as the orphan trains.  On September 28, 1854, the first orphan train was a riverboat carrying 37 children from New York to Michigan.

 

Brady could not remember his parents, but he remembered his aunt leaving him to exist on the streets when he was about eight years old.  He joined a gang of boys who survived by stealing.  In 1861, Brady was taken off the streets and placed with an affluent family.  Brady became part of a family and was forever grateful to Charles Brace.  During this same time, Harry Morris was also taken off the streets and he was not returned to his family who were providing the best care they could.  Harry was sent away on an orphan train.  His experience was so adverse that as soon as he was able, he escaped back to his family in New York.

 

In response to the negative fall out of the orphan trains, advocates began to cry out against Brace's work.  The 1909 White House Conference on the Case of Dependency Children met for the first time to discuss the needs of children.  This conference became the catalyst for Congress to pass the bill that created the Child's Bureau.  Children living on the streets or being institutionalized would now have the option of legally being adopted through a formal structure.  Adoption became one way for a child to have permanent care.

 

According to the Children's Bureau, over 129,000 children in foster care are waiting to be adopted.  There are no accurate statistics of the number of children needing homes in other countries. 

 

In November we celebrate National Adoption Month.  I would encourage you to begin planning one thing you can do to help children lingering in foster care, living in orphanages or surviving on the streets.  Send your ideas for the next newsletter that will be sent November 1st to kick off National Adoption Month.