"Children aren’t the future, they are today.  If we don’t meet their needs today, they will have no future.” 

Through a variety of Supervisor Antonovich's motions throughout the years, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors unanimously supported new State legislation or changes to existing legislation and allocated County resources and staffing necessary to:

-- Implement a variety of innovative successful initiatives that streamlined the adoption process for foster children;

-- Promote the adoption of older youth and improve their educational opportunities;

-- Create a website that tracks and successfully facilitates locating children who have run away from care; and

-- Create the County's Child Abduction Regional Emergency (CARE) Alert program, a model for the nationwide Amber Alert system helping recover abducted children.

In 2006, Supervisor Antonovich successfully negotiated a Title IV-E Waiver Demonstration Project for Los Angeles County that will improve safety and permanency outcomes for children and youth by focusing on prevention and intervention innovations to keep children safely in their homes or move them to timely alternative permanency.

"Emancipation without permanency or support is a form of government-sanctioned child abuse," says Antonovich. "The parents of our youth have rejected or abandoned them in one form or another. When they turn age 18, their government is doing the same, placing them at risk of long-term dependence on public assistance, homelessness, substance abuse, incarceration and death."

In 2007, on Supervisor Antonovich's motion, Los Angeles County sponsored State legislation, introduced in the California legislature by Assemblyman Bill Maze and Assemblywoman Karen Bass to enhance services and financial supports to emancipated foster youth between the ages of 18 and 21 statewide. 

In addition, Supervisor Antonovich sponsors annual County Foster Youth Career Fairs and Resource Expos, Adoption Festivals, fundraisers for foster youth needs, faith-based forums to promote foster and adoptive parent recruitment throughout Los Angeles County; and made millions of dollars in grants available throughout the Fifth Supervisorial District for supportive housing for transition age foster youth who are homeless or at-risk of homelessness. 

Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush appointed Antonovich to numerous presidential committees and commissions, including the Missing Children Advisory Board. The National Association of Counties honored Supervisor Antonovich with the 2003 Counties Care for Kids Award. Antonovich is a member of the California Judicial Council Blue Ribbon Commission on Foster Care; serves on the Child Abuse Program in the California Legislature; and is involved in various community activities, which include serving the Good Shepherd Lutheran Home for Retarded Children and the San Gabriel Valley Council of the Boy Scouts of America. 

To adopt a Foster Child please call (888) 811-1121.