Foster families needed in Catalonia

Adop­tions of chil­dren of in­ter­na­tional ori­gin in Cat­alo­nia are at a 20 year low. Last year 153 in­fants were adopted, which showed a slight in­crease year-on-year com­pared to 2016, but still rep­re­sents a steady de­cline from the high of over 1,500 chil­dren in 2004. How­ever, there are still more fam­i­lies look­ing to adopt than there are adopt­able chil­dren. Fos­ter­ing how­ever, sees the op­po­site prob­lem, where around 700 Cata­lan fam­i­lies are cur­rently host­ing 900 chil­dren. Agnès Russiñol of the Cata­lan In­sti­tute for Fos­ter­ing and Adop­tion (ICAA) says much more must be done in terms of “per­ma­nent cam­paigns and knowl­edge-build­ing around fos­ter­ing” which she says “is mis­un­der­stood” in Cat­alo­nia. Only 54% of Cata­lans are said to know what fos­ter­ing en­tails, or be fa­mil­iar with re­lated gov­ern­ment in­cen­tives and strate­gies, com­pared to adop­tion which is much bet­ter un­der­stood.