About Us

Helping Kids Cope was founded in July 2002 and started helping people in January 2003.  Our mission is to help children, families and birthparents cope with adoption. While defraying the cost of the adoption services, granting request the children waiting in the foster care system or helping with educational needs to birthparents who have successfully completed an adoption.

Our goal is to grant 250 awards by the end of 2003. By doing this we need your help. We need people to give and we need people to volunteer.

I have worked in adoption for many years counseling ladies placing their child for adoption and I commend these ladies for knowing their limits and doing the most selfless act they could do and looking for the best interest in the child. I applaud all birthparents. I witnessed the commitment that these expectant mothers had for the unborn child. I saw the adoptive parents go from being a “couple” to a “family”. The emotions that run wild in adoption are often overwhelming on everyone’s part and I want to help diffuse some on that. I am not attempting to take the place of counseling or any aspect an adoption agency. I just want to help make the adoption process a positive experience for everyone involved.

The children waiting in foster care to be adopted deserve to have a good life also. I want them to see positive things and experience positive things. I want to help them know that they can make a difference and they too, can have a permanent family. We have so many children here in the USA alone that are waiting to be adopted and we have wonderful foster parents that love these children and do their best. I just want every child to feel loved and wanted.

Currently 100% of donations goes to the awards.  We are operated by volunteers.

Some insight into adoption and foster care

• Adoption is not just giving birth. The birth parent, especially the expectant mother seeks prenatal care, counseling sessions and possible adoptive parent selection. Then she endures delivery. Upon arrival of the child she endures emotional and physical challenges. The adoption plan is put into place by the birth parents but is carried through with the help of professionals.
  
• The adoptive families do not just decide they are going to adopt. They have completed a homestudy by a licensed agency. They must also prepare emotionally and financially for the adoption. They must start to learn about parenting techniques and the vast amounts of knowledge needed to be a good, confident parent. They often feel like they are being tested or place under a microscope.
  
• The young child in foster care might have a great foster family but yearn for a permanent home. They feel confused and often do not understand why they are in foster care. They experience a range of emotions and often long to have a place they can call home.
  
• With conception of Helping Kids Cope there were over 125,000 children waiting in foster care in the USA. The number of waiting families seeking to adopt is also in the hundred thousands.
  
• The Parents To Be Award will help defray the cost of the adoption services.
  
• The Smiles Award will put a smile on the face of a child in foster care by helping them with their educational needs.  With educational tools these children will be able to excel in life.
• The Positive Choice Award will give the birthparent a chance to excel in their life by granting request to enhance education.
  

With all this in mind, give your time and talents to Helping Kids Cope.

Letter from the founder

I am so elated to say that Helping Kids Cope is officially off the ground and running. The organization has been in my mind for many years but to see it “up in lights” is an awesome feeling. Let me first start by telling you the background of Helping Kids Cope. It was founded in July 2002 to help grant the request of three classes of people, adoptive parents, children in foster care waiting to be adopted, and birth parents that have completed a successful adoption.

Our mission will always remain to help children in the adoption process Helping Kids Cope promotes the enrichment of children’s lives through adoption assistance, programs that help fulfill the lives of children in the adoption process and programs that help birthmothers succeed in their life after the adoption process. As our foundation matures our mission will remain steadfast. With the focus always remaining on adoption I know that we can help many of families, children and birth parents.

I have had the pleasure of working in the adoption arena for many years and absolutely feel that it is my calling to continue in this manner. I was privilege enough to be in the delivery room with birth mothers that were placing their child for adoption. I was also privileged to see the adoptive parents see the newborn for the first time at placement. I also was able to help young people place the child they tried to raise but felt that it was not in the best interest of the child so they place the child for adoption. All these experiences were amazing. Adoption is so positive for everyone involved but it takes everyone involved to make it happen.

Being adopted myself I also have a strong love for adoption. I know now what that birth mother went through, the anxiety about things and hopefully the feeling of knowing she made the right choice.  I am thankful to her for her brave decision and I am also thankful for my parents who I would not of had without having a birth mother. I could not of ask for better parents then the ones I have.

I hope that you find hope with Helping Kids Cope, and I hope that you find peace with whatever challenge you are facing. I know the emotional roller coaster of adopting and I have experienced the emotional roller coaster with birthparents in placing. But lets also not forget the children in foster care who would desperately like to have a family and loving parents also.

I encourage you to watch Helping Kids Cope grow through out the years to come and together let's help as many people as we can and grant as many request as we can. Without support from the communities, individuals and corporations Helping Kids Cope would not exist and I thank you.

My best wishes,