“I have decided to stick love,” said the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
Putting that love into practice is the family of Jake and Liz Skurdal of Ankeny, who were honored in November as one of about 100 families across the U.S. to be selected as Angels in Adoption by the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute (CCAI).
“We started off doing foster care for a teen boy whom we met while working at Woodward Academy, and he needed somewhere to go,” Liz Skurdal said. “Then it just snowballed from there!”
That was in 2009 when, one week after their wedding, the couple first became foster parents and later adoptive parents. Their son is now 28 and has a daughter of his own.
“He still calls us every holiday and birthday and Mother’s and Father’s Day,” said Skurdal, who grew up near Perry and Adel before going off to college. The adoption idea has caught on in the Skurdal circle.
“My parents are now foster parents,” she said, “and we have several friends and relatives who also became foster parents after seeing our journey.”
Today the Skurdal family’s Ankeny home is filled out by 15-year-old Destiny, 12-year-old Braden, 11-year-old Brielynn, 11-year-old Adi, 9-year-old J.J. and 7-year-old and Cole, all of whom appear to be flourishing.
“There really aren’t many costs associated with it other than the normal costs of raising kids,” Skurdal said, who draws on a large surplus of love for all her children.
The CCAI is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization of advocates for children in the U.S. and around the world in need of families. It is an arm of Congress’ adoption caucus, the Congressional Coalition on Adoption, which was founded in 1985.
The CCAI’s Angels in Adoption committee is composed of child welfare experts. The committee opens nominations annually in order to identify and create a pool of the top child welfare advocates across the country, and from these are chosen the Angels.
The Skurdals traveled to Washington, D.C., to receive their honors, meeting there with fellow Iowans U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley and U.S. Rep. Steve King.
The image of foster parenting in Iowa was tarnished in recent years by the tragic deaths of teenagers Natalie Finn in 2016 and Sabrina Ray in 2017, but Skurdal says more dedicated foster families and adoptive families are needed to support kids and families in Iowa to ensure kids are safe.
“DHS workers do their best and work hard but are limited based upon current laws at both the state and federal level,” she said. “More emphasis is being put on family reunification and family placement than previously, which is good because it keeps children with families, but it also makes it difficult for children without familial supports to be placed if their families can’t be successful with reunification.”
To learn more about the Angels in Adoption Program, visit the Angels in Adoption website. For more information on becoming a foster parent or adoptive parent, visit the Iowa Department of Human Services website.
