Foster Care Campaign Features LGBT Parents & Celebrities

When it comes to foster care and even adoption, there’s often a lot of misconceptions around the whole system and the people involved. A new campaign called, RaiseAChild “Reimagining Foster Parents,” co-sponsored by the Los Angeles County Department of Children & Family Services, is hoping to change those misconceptions with powerful ads.

This week 350 street light banners were put up in Los Angeles and Long Beach in honor of this campaign and many of the banners feature gay couples or parents.

These banners were complemented by awesome new commercials that features celebrities like Jon Cryer of Two and a Half Men and his wife, television reporter and host, Lisa Joyner; Scott Shriner, the bass player for the rock band Weezer, and his wife, author, Jillian Lauren; actor comedian Alec Mapa and his husband, producer, Jamie Hebert; and actress Cleo King and her wife, Camille Thornto.

The celebrities in the video all provide their own snippets about foster care and rally at the end with the same line: “We choose to be foster parents.”

In the above commercial, we learn that Lisa Joyner was in foster care and adopted as a child. In the commercial, she says a resonating line, “Family is where you find it. It’s not who you’re born to.” Joyner and Cryer adopted a baby girl together.

Cryer adds to Joyner’s beautiful line with his own: “Families can defy convention… it is what you make it.”

“You don’t know what you’re going to get. That’s what people are afraid of I think,” said actress, singer, and foster adoptive parent, Cleo King, nailing the main fear surrounding foster care. “But this is what I know today. Even if you have a baby… you still don’t know what you’re going to get. So it’s okay. Just love the one that comes.”

She added: “We want families to know that children need homes. I’m here to say it is a wonderful gift. Let’s connect the people and love these children that are already here.”

Comedian Alec Mapa was also featured in some of the videos. He was reported as saying this about foster care: “If you are considering becoming a foster to adopt parent you should educate yourself. The more my husband and I learned about it, the more it became clear that this was the family building path for us.”

To learn more go to RaiseaChild.org,