Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 19, 1990 TAG: 9003222385
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW ORLEANS LENGTH: Medium
The children were wards of the state who had volunteered for Saturday's Easter fashion show in hope that someone might see them and want to adopt them.
"We're going back in time," said Gloria Mitchell, who attended the fashion show at the Lakeside Mall. "This is like slavery. We're auctioning off these kids."
But officials from the state Department of Social Services said fashion shows, like the department's weekly television spots, help find something that's in short supply: families to adopt some of Louisiana's 5,000 foster children.
Except for 1988, when officials objected to having the children shown along with cats and dogs from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the department has used fashion shows as a chance to show some of these children in as good a light as possible.
"I would love to not have to do this," said Kerry Ermon, whose job is finding adoptive families in the New Orleans area. "I would love it if we had more families than children, but that's not the reality."
Only children who volunteer participate. The younger ones say they do it for fun. The older ones say they have to.
"I want to get a family," said Mark, 13, a veteran of the fashion shows and television spots.
Since most people prefer to adopt infants, a child's hopes of adoption grow slimmer with every year. Television and fashion show appearances become more urgent - especially for black children, for whom there are few potential families, Ermon said.
Even the high-visibility events tend to attract more prospective white parents than black, Ermon said. She said it's a constant frustration for social workers that even white children who have severe emotional problems find homes more quickly than well-behaved black children.
by CNB