Ross County Children's Services hopes some local children will get a good present this holiday season -- a new, safe and loving home.
The agency conducted an adoption awareness event Tuesday in which it hopes to pair up children with potential future healthy, loving families.
Coordinator Laura Barrington said the agency has 14 kids eligible for adoption and has found nine of them families.
"We are still looking for families that match up with our remaining five children," she said.
According to the Ohio Adoption Guide, about 2,100 children are joined with adoptive families every year.
Adoption is the permanent, legal transfer of all parental rights from one person or couple to another person or couple. Adoptive parents have the same rights and responsibilities as parents whose children were born to them.
According to the National Adoption Attitudes Survey, nearly 40 percent of American adults, or 81.5 million people, have considered adopting a child at one time or another.
November is Adoption Awareness Month, and Barrington stressed the importance for the children of spreading the word about adoption.
"It's not a difficult process. Many people think the process to adopt is complicated, and that is not the case at all," she said.
The process, according to the Ohio Adoption Guide, includes attending informational meetings or orientations, a pre-service training to explore adoption from the child's point of view, a home study that looks at family structure, beliefs, attitudes and coping skills, approval by the agency and a matching process to find a child with the right fit for the family.
Then, there is a trial placement of the child in the home to see if the relationship works before the court can be petitioned to finalize the adoption.
One of the challenges for those working in fields dealing with adoption, she said, is finding placement for older children. Typically, infants and younger children are adopted more quickly than older ones.
"Some people have this idea of older children, that they are troubled youth, and that's not true," she said.
Another misconception is that a person has to be wealthy in order to adopt, she said.
Barrington said many of the older children go off to college and don't even have a home to return to on breaks or over the holidays. Those children, even though they are on the verge of full adulthood, need that family structure as well, she said.
"Every child is adoptable," Barrington said.
For more information on adoption, contact Ross County Children's Services at 702-4453.
Phillips can be reached at 772-9376 or via e-mail at phillips@chillicothegazette.com