Foster Care Awareness Month | A Guide for Hampton Roads

What Is Foster Care Awareness Month?

We all want the kids in our community to grow up feeling safe, loved, and fully supported. Foster Care Awareness Month, which we celebrate every May, is our chance as a community to pause and really acknowledge the incredible children and teens currently navigating the foster care system. It’s also a time to give a huge, heartfelt shout-out to the dedicated foster parents, kinship caregivers, social workers, and everyday advocates who wrap their arms around these kids when they need it most. Since 1988, this month has grown from a formal presidential proclamation into a beautiful, nationwide movement of neighbors helping neighbors.

At its heart, this month is all about changing the conversation. It’s our chance to look past the grim statistics and focus on the real, human stories – stories of incredible resilience and the very real need for us all to step up. In Virginia, thousands of kids have been temporarily separated from their homes due to tough circumstances they had absolutely no control over. This month is a gentle reminder that caring for our community’s kids isn’t just a job for the government or social services; it’s something everyone can be a part of.

Whether it’s learning more about how to support kids who have been through trauma, speaking up for teens trying to figure out life after foster care, or simply dropping off a hot lasagna to a new foster family down the street, the whole point of May is to take action. When we truly understand what these families are going through, we can show up for them in so many meaningful ways. It’s a beautiful time to honor the biological parents working incredibly hard to bring their kids safely home, the foster families opening their front doors at a moment’s notice, and the caseworkers pouring their hearts into every single visit.

National Foster Care Month’s 2026 Theme

Every year, there’s a special theme that helps guide our conversations and reminds us where we need to focus our energy. The national foster care month 2026 theme is all about looking forward and building real connections: “Engaging Youth. Building Supports. Strengthening Opportunities.” It’s an important shift in how we think about foster care! Instead of just making sure a child has a temporary roof over their head, we’re talking about helping them build a lifelong network of people who love and support them.

This is especially huge for our teenagers and older kids. Here in Virginia, programs like Fostering Futures have shown us just how tough it can be for young adults when they age out of the system and suddenly have to figure out housing, jobs, and college all on their own. The 2026 theme is a beautiful reminder that our teens need a seat at the table. We need to listen to their voices, ask them what they actually want, and help them stay connected to the teachers, coaches, and friends who already mean the world to them. When we do that, we can help change their whole future.

The theme also shines a big, bright light on “kinship care,” – which simply means placing kids with grandparents, aunts, uncles, or even close family friends whenever it’s safe to do so. Think about it: when a child can stay with someone they already know and trust, it takes away some of the fear and heartbreak of leaving home. It helps them hold onto their family traditions and their roots. Here in Hampton Roads, we love seeing kids get to stay in their same school district and play on the same Little League teams, because those familiar faces mean everything when your world is turning upside down.

The Foster Care Awareness Ribbon & Color

Have you noticed those lovely, light blue ribbons popping up around town lately? The foster care awareness ribbon/color is a bright, hopeful shade of light blue. This specific color wasn’t chosen by accident. It represents the peaceful, stable, and bright future that every single child deserves. It’s a gentle symbol of the healing and hope we want to bring back into the lives of kids who are going through a confusing and scary time.

Throughout May, you’ll likely spot this light blue ribbon in all sorts of places across Hampton Roads. You might see a neighbor wearing one on their jacket, a local coffee shop drawing it on their chalkboard, or your friends adding it to their social media profiles. But it’s more than just a pretty graphic. That little blue ribbon is a wonderful conversation starter. It gives you an easy, friendly way to show your support and invites people to ask questions, especially if they don’t know much about what foster care actually looks like in our area.

When you spot a light blue ribbon tied around a tree in Norfolk or pinned to a coworker’s lanyard in Chesapeake, it’s a quiet, sweet reminder of the kids right here in our neighborhoods who are waiting to go home or waiting for a forever family. Just being visible is such an important first step. When we proudly display that light blue ribbon, we bring the topic of foster care out into the open, sending a strong message to these kids that they are seen, they are so valued, and their community is right here cheering them on.

• Our Military Community: We love our big, beautiful military presence, but because families move so often, it can be tough to maintain a steady number of foster homes.
• The School Shuffle: When we don’t have enough local homes, kids might have to move to a completely different city. Imagine how heartbreaking it is for a child to lose their school, their friends, and their favorite teachers all at once.
• The Sibling Gap: We have a huge, urgent need for families willing to keep brothers and sisters together. Finding a home with enough bedrooms and love for a whole sibling set is one of our biggest challenges.
• Teenagers in Transition: Many of our local youth in care are teens who need a soft place to land while they learn how to navigate adulthood right here in their home cities.

Because May is foster care awareness month, it’s the perfect time to look at what our specific community needs. These are our Hampton Roads kids, and they need all of us to help them feel safe and grounded.

The Truth About Kids in Foster Care

One of the greatest barriers to recruiting new foster families is the persistence of harmful myths and misconceptions about the children in the system. It is time to set the record straight: children do not enter foster care because they are “bad kids” or because of anything they did wrong. Children enter care due to abuse, neglect, or profound family crises. They are victims of circumstance who are experiencing the worst disruption imaginable, and any behavioral challenges they exhibit are deeply rooted in trauma, grief, and the stress of uncertainty.

Healing begins with trauma-informed care. The truth about these kids is that they are incredibly resilient, brilliantly capable, and deeply deserving of patience. They need caregivers who understand that a meltdown is often a manifestation of fear, not defiance. Furthermore, the primary goal of foster care is not adoption; it is reunification. Over half of the children who enter care will eventually return safely to their biological parents. Foster parents are asked to be a safe harbor for the child while simultaneously acting as a cheerleader and support system for the biological family as they do the hard work of healing and stabilizing.

Another profound truth is that teenagers make up a significant portion of the foster care population. While many prospective parents envision fostering infants or toddlers, the average age of a child in care in Virginia is around 8 years old, and teenagers represent the group most at risk of aging out without a permanent family structure. Teens in care are navigating the standard awkwardness of adolescence compounded by profound systemic trauma. They need someone to teach them how to drive, help them fill out FAFSA forms, and show up to their high school graduation. The truth is, you don’t have to be perfect to make a difference in their lives; you just have to be consistently present.

Why Hampton Roads Needs More Foster Families

Here’s the tough reality we’re facing right now in Hampton Roads: we just don’t have enough safe, loving homes for the kids who need them. When local social workers can’t find an open home right here in the child’s own city, they have to start looking further away, sometimes placing a child hours from everything they know and love.

At The Up Center, our biggest dream is to keep kids in their own familiar communities, but we can only make that happen if more local families say “yes.” We need families of all shapes and sizes! Whether you’re single, an empty-nester, or a younger couple, you have so much love to offer. We also deeply need diverse families. Kids just do so much better when they can live in a home that shares their culture, speaks their language, and understands their background.

We also really need folks in Hampton Roads who are willing to be flexible. We need homes for older kids, kids with medical needs, and big sibling groups. We know it sounds intimidating, but when you become a foster parent, you are doing something profoundly beautiful. You are literally stopping the cycle of trauma in its tracks. You are giving a child’s brain the chance to finally turn off “survival mode” and just go back to being a kid who plays, learns, and laughs. Yes, it’s hard work, but the joy and the impact you’ll have on our community’s future? That’s absolutely priceless.

6 Foster Care Awareness Month Ideas: How to Get Involved

We know that not everyone can become a full-time foster parent, but here are six totally doable, impactful foster care awareness month ideas to help you get involved in Hampton Roads this May.

Foster Care Awareness Month Quotes to Share

As we mentioned, sharing a touching message can really inspire someone else to take action. Here are a few lovely foster care awareness month quotes you can use to help spread the word this May:

“Foster care is a bridge. We are asked to hold the structural weight of a child’s trauma so they can safely cross over into healing.” Isn’t that a beautiful way to think about it? As a foster family, you aren’t trying to replace anyone; you are just being a safe, sturdy bridge while a child goes through a really stormy season.

“To be a foster parent is to love a child as if they were your own, while fully knowing they are not, and cheering for the day they can safely go home.” Since going home is the main goal, this quote perfectly captures the bittersweet, beautiful, and totally selfless love that foster parents pour out every single day.

“We cannot change the circumstances that brought a child into care, but we can completely dictate the environment they heal in.” We can’t rewrite a child’s past, but we have 100% control over making their present warm, cozy, and safe. A loving, structured home is the best medicine in the world.

“There are no unwanted children, just unfound families.” For all our amazing teens in Hampton Roads who are waiting to be adopted, this is such a powerful reminder. Every single teenager deserves a family to call when they get their heart broken or when they finally graduate.

“It takes a village to raise a child. It takes an intentional, trauma-informed community to heal one.” We truly are a village! It takes caseworkers, teachers, therapists, neighbors, and foster families all linking arms to make sure these kids thrive.

Meet Our Hampton Roads Foster Families

Numbers are important, but the real heart and soul of what we do is found in the amazing people we get to work with. The Up Center is so incredibly lucky to partner with the best families in Hampton Roads.  (NOTE:  We will add the images on the Website)

Take the Davis family over in Chesapeake, for example. At first, they were pretty nervous about fostering a teenager. But they opened their doors to a 15-year-old boy who had been bounced around a lot. By using the training they got from The Up Center and just bonding over cooking and basketball, they gave him the stability he needed to graduate. Now he’s in community college, and he still comes over for Sunday dinner every week! They didn’t have all the answers; they just had love and consistency.

Then there’s Sarah, a wonderful single woman living in Virginia Beach. She realized she didn’t need to be married or have a huge house to change a life. Sarah is one of our heroes who takes emergency placements. When a family has a crisis in the middle of the night, Sarah provides a warm bed, a quiet hug, and a safe place for kids to land while social workers figure things out. She is such a vital part of our community’s safety net.

And we can’t forget the Martinez family in Norfolk! When three siblings (ages 4, 7, and 9) came into care, everyone was worried they’d have to be split up. The Martinez family had only planned on fostering one child, but they spent an entire weekend converting their home office into a bedroom just so those kids could stay together. Because of them, those sweet siblings didn’t lose each other on top of losing their home. These are the everyday heroes making magic happen in Hampton Roads!