You Gotta
Believe…..
Every Child
Deserves
a Family
Pat O’Brien, and a group of adoptive parents of teens and young people who aged out of foster care, conceived of the idea of You Gotta Believe in 1994 after Pat O’Brien was inspired by the work that he was doing placing older children for adoption with another agency. Pat loved the work that he was doing but noticed that for every teen or older child that was freed for adoption, willing to be adopted, and was still a minor (under 18 years of age) there were at least 2 or 3 other teens who were not freed for adoption, might have told a social worker they didn’t want to be adopted, or might have already turned 18.
Those teens needed permanent parents recruited for them just as much as the freed-for-adoption, willing, and young people under the age of 18. So Pat and this group of parents started what they envisioned as a “movement” to find permanent parents for teens without regard to that teens status as a freed child, a willing child, or even a child at all. You Gotta Believe! The Older Child Adoption & Permanency Movement, Inc would do one job and one job only. And that job is to recruit lifetime parents for teens currently in the foster care system who will answer the crucial question “where is Johnny going to live when Johnny gets discharged from foster care?” with the very simply answer “right here at home with his family.”
