In a recent interview for the Huffington Post’s Queer Voices “Let Love Define Family®” series, celebrity wellness expert Jillian Michaels and her partner Heidi Rhoades opened up about their beautiful family. They shared how they got started with their international adoption from Haiti and went on to elaborate some strong feelings on the myths they believed about foster care. They are both now very vocal about advocating for the needs of children waiting for permanent families within the system, thanks in part to their work with the Dave Thomas Foundation and Boys Town.
“… as of right now, there are over 120,000 kids in the foster system that have had their parental rights terminated, that need a loving home. There is no child that should be in this world without someone to guide them, to protect them, to watch over them. It is unacceptable. This is something that is really an issue that we need to pull out from being swept under the rug. Let’s all take a good hard look at the numbers of children in the foster system and start discussing it. There are so many misconceptions regarding foster care and fostering to adopt that it’s just disturbing.” Michaels went on to encourage readers to strongly consider how they might play a role in changing the future of the kids who wait in U.S. foster care, “It’s a way for people to make a change. This is quite simple, because everybody can foster to adopt. So therefore everybody can change somebody’s life and build their own family. YOU have the power to do that.”
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