Foster care & Adoption

The new director of the Iowa Reading Research Center discusses k-12 reading education in Iowa, and the director of the Reel Hope Project explains how the project helps foster children find homes.

Author Mark Daley has shared his experiences fostering and what he learned along the way in the book Safe: A Memoir of Fatherhood, Foster Care and the Risks We Take for Family.

Two Iowa children who faced severe physical abuse, neglect and torture by their adoptive parents are set to receive $5 million each under a settlement approved by State Appeal Board. They were adopted siblings of Sabrina Ray, who died of starvation in 2017.

Around 7 million Americans are adopted, and just like every family is unique, every adoption experience is unique. When stories are told about adoption, we tend to focus on the experiences of adoptive parents, but adoptees have their own important stories to share.

For as long as she can remember Katherine Linn Caire has known that she was adopted, but as is the case with many adoptees, there was a lot she didn’t know.

Twenty years ago, Native communities in western Iowa protested the disproportionate number of Natives placed in the child welfare system. They’re still marching today.

Black artists from across Iowa perform, discuss the meaning of the Juneteenth celebration and talk about how their experiences as Black Iowans fuel their music.

Charity Nebbe and her guests talk about adoption and how the people who were adopted as children often find themselves with a lot to process.

The pandemic has put a stress on the availability of foster care homes. In western Iowa, organizations say the need is acute.

In Iowa, it’s always difficult to find enough foster homes to take in children who need them. And it’s even tougher to place Latino and Spanish-speaking children in well-matched homes. There are currently more Latino children in foster care than there are Latino foster parents. And when they don’t get placed in well-matched homes, they can lose touch with their culture.