Until All Have Homes is an organization that I don’t think I have mentioned lately. Until All Have Homes was started by Anne Grabeman, and is run by parents of special needs kids (most of them adoptive parents).

They advocate for special needs children all over the world, and work to find homes for special needs orphans. They are not an adoption agency, but network with agencies that have good reputations to help find homes for the hardest to place kids.

One of the things I love most about them is that they also support children with special needs and help them stay with their birth families when possible. There is a GORGEOUS baby in Africa on the homepage right now that was born with significant limb differences. His family was going to place him for adoption because they thought that international adoption would provide his best option for medical treatment, but Until All Have Homes has stepped in and now this little baby will be able to remain in the arms of his loving parents, AND receive the medical treatment he needs.

Until All Have Homes has gotten all of his medical care arranged in the US and donated, and are raising money to pay for the airfare needed to fly him to the US once a year for follow up. There are countless families out there that would have happily adopted this little guy (and an adoption would be most likely been easier to arrange), but it is awesome that he is able to stay with the mom and dad that he knows and loves (and that know and love him!) AND get the care he needs. This is a situation where the needs and best interest of the child were truly put first.

UAHH also works on bringing highly fragile kids to the US on medical visas, and there are stories about some of these kids on their blog.

They have waiting kids who are available for adoption and waiting for a family listed in many different countries on the website (some of which have grants to help with their adoption expenses). I know there are people out there who are against photo listings, but I believe that when they are done respectfully (without too much personal info shared) that they are an invaluable tool for finding homes for hard to place kids.

There aren’t a whole lot of adoptive parents out there who get up one day and say, “What I really want to do is adopt an older child with special needs”, but there are lots of adoptive parents who have seen an older child with special needs on a photolisting, become aware of that child, educated themselves about the special needs, fallen in love with that child, and decided that adopting him or her was the right thing for their family.

Five of the kids we have adopted have been “waiting kids”, some because of age, some because of special needs and one because of both. My heart really goes out to the kids that are waiting, waiting, waiting, while so many parents are waiting, waiting, waiting for a healthy baby. I have said it a million times on here... I would never encourage any parent to adopt a child that they weren’t 100% prepared for and excited about parenting, and I do not judge anyone who waits in line for a healthy baby. We have done that twice ourselves.

But I sure do wish that there were more families out there open to the kids that desperately need families and are waiting to be chosen.

Here are a few more websites that advocate for waiting/special needs kids (and if you know of one, leave me a comment with the info!)

Brittany's Hope

Rainbowkids.com

AdoptUSKids

Chances By Choice