Adoption is a lifelong journey, and there are many paths that lead children to permanent and stable homes. Below you’ll find an overview of our Adoption and Permanency Services, and the different ways that Stanford Sierra Youth & Families (SSYF) helps children find and connect with their forever family.

Adoption

There are thousands of children and youth currently living in foster care and available for adoption. These children have not been able to reunify with their birth families and are often living with families who are not able to make a permanent commitment. The children are often school-age and older youth who may have experienced physical or emotional trauma in their lives. Like all children, they can thrive with the long-term stability of living with a loving family who has made a forever commitment to them.

Learn how to begin your foster-adoption journey through SSYF.

Resource Families

SSYF Resource Families are dually approved for foster care and adoption. They provide a safe and loving home to children while they are in the process of potentially reunifying with birth parents. These families provide a stable safety net to help children/youth cope during a transitional time. The majority of these children are six years old or older. The children we serve often have active reunification plans with their birth families, so potential adoptive families are trained in how to best support a child during that process.

If reunification is not successful, then the families are approved and committed to adopt so the child is not subjected to any further trauma or unnecessary transitions.

Study after study finds concurrent planning is the best situation for children in the foster care system because the child does not experience multiple moves and achieves a permanent family quicker and with less disruptions.

Learn how you can become dual-approved for foster care and adoption.

Destination Family

Destination Family finds and supports a family for children who are living in long term foster care. Without specialized services many of these youth will age out of the system. The team wraps supports around children to prepare them for a family. The team provides family finding, child focused recruitment and on-going family supports. Over one hundred youth receive these services annually in Sacramento, Placer and Nevada Counties.

For more information call:

Sacramento Office: (916) 368-5114

Auburn Office: (530) 887-9982

Grass Valley Office: (530) 478-0900

Wendy’s Wonderful Kids (WWK)

The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption provides SSYF with two Wendy’s Wonderful Kids Recruiters to find adoptive homes for Sacramento children living in foster care. Recently released research from a five-year evaluation of Wendy’s Wonderful Kids shows that children, even older children, with mental health disorders are up to three times more likely to get adopted when referred to WWK.

Visit the Dave Thomas Foundation website for more information.

Check out this great interview with Sandy Sertyn and the Hess Family. The interview dives into Wendy’s founder Dave Thomas’ story and his foundation’s work to target the foster care children who have been deemed the hardest to adopt and defy the odds, finding them a forever home. Click here to listen now.

Wendy’s Wonderful Kids Recruiters

Sandy Sertyn, MS
Wendy’s Wonderful Kids Recruiter
(916) 368-5114 Ext. 327
ssertyn@sierraff.org

Natalia Capozziello
Wendy’s Wonderful Kids Recruiter
(916) 368-5114 Ext. 325
ncapozziello@sierraff.org