We hear it a lot, that there’s a shortage of foster and adoptive families, but especially for our black children. From infants to teenagers, millions of kids are in the foster system, shuffling from group home to group home, looking for a place to call home, a group of people to call their family. The older you are, the harder it is to find your “forever home” of sorts. Many families look to adopt babies, not teens who will soon age out of the system. But there’s always exceptions to the rule. 15-year-old Davion wants to be that exception.
Davion Navar Henry Only has been an orphan since he was born. He was born to a mother in jail, and didn’t discover who she was until he looked up the name from his birth certificate. Once Davion found his mother, 55-year-old La-Dwina Ilene “Big Dust” McCloud, he also found out startling news: she had died just a few weeks prior to him discovering who she was.
Before that discovery, Davion experienced a lot of anger and rage. When his case worker would take him to adoption events and try to help him find an adoptive family, he would act out, isolate himself, and he was performing poorly in school. However, Davion’s discovery of his mother’s fate became his epiphany. His case worker, Connie Going said, “‘He decided he wanted to control his behavior and show everyone who he could be.”
So Davion came up with an idea. In September, he decided to seek someone to adopt him at church. He got dressed up in his only suit and attended Sunday service at St. Mark Missionary Baptist Church in Tampa, Florida. He hesitated before going inside, saying he didn’t want to go through with it after all. But Ms. Going insisted, “You’re going to be great.”
Click here to read more on Davion’s story and what happened that day in the Tampa Bay Times.
BMWK – if you have experience with adoption, please share with us your thoughts on how it has impacted your life and the life of others. What else do we need to know about adoption?
Featured Photo from the Tampa Bay Times