This post is sponsored by SAFY, Specialized Alternatives for Families and Youth.
It’s October, a month when we think of scary (but safe) things and trash bags that will soon hold candy.

October is also a lead-in to November, known to so many of us as National Adoption Awareness Month (emphasis on awareness).
Longtime readers will recall how the purpose for National Adoption Month got off its original track in recent decades. In 1976, Adoption Week in Massachusetts had the goal to “promote awareness of the need for adoptive families for children in foster care” (Child Welfare Information Gateway). In other words, to find homes for children who needed one.
Somewhere along the expansion from one state to all states and from a week to a month, the purpose also expanded. So let’s take a moment — as we sometimes do with the commercialization of Christmas and what its original meaning was — to return to basics.