November is National Adoption Month. We sat down with Lisa Williams, an adoption attorney in Topeka, to learn more about adoption, foster care, and helping kids find a forever home.
Lisa has always had a heart for children. She began her career as a teacher in Missouri. But she also had an interest in law. When she came to Kansas, the teaching requirements were very different, so since she was going back to school, she decided to pursue a career in law instead. She graduated with her law degree from Washburn University in 2014.
From the moment she took an adoption class in law school, she says, “The bells and whistles went off. This is what I wanted to do.” She has been practicing primarily adoption law since graduating. “I still get to serve kids, but in a different way. I’ve finalized a little over two hundred adoptions,” Lisa said with an underlying sense of pride. That is a remarkable number for a solo practitioner.
Last year, she took her passion one step further by founding Shape of My Heart Adoptions, a licensed private child-placing agency. In its first year, the agency helped complete seven private adoptions and assisted numerous birth mothers with resources and support.
Lisa’s heart for this work is personal as well as professional - she is adopted herself. Her own experience fuels her belief that adoption can change, and even prevent, the need for foster care. “I am a firm believer that adoption is a preventative measure for foster care, frankly,” Lisa shared. “Sometimes, parents really want to keep their children, but realize they are not in a position to do so. Without the resources to raise them, those children would most likely end up in the foster care system. Adoption is a much better option for those children.”
“Plus, today’s adoptions are much different,” she pointed out. “Back when I was adopted, it was very secretive, but today, open adoptions are the norm. The natural parents can still maintain some sort of a relationship with the child as long as it's in the child's best interest. I think that's just better for both.”
Lisa does not shy away from recognizing the foster system’s flaws. She notes that even removal from a home for 24 hours can leave a lifetime imprint of trauma, and that children often cycle through multiple placements, increasing those feelings of abandonment. She says in many cases, a fit and willing relative might be available, but locating and supporting that connection is not always prioritized. She argues that when relative placement is not viable, the time spent in foster care should be minimized.
The average time a child spends in foster care in Kansas is two years; however, the average length of stay varies significantly by permanency outcome: 11 months for reunification, 42 months for adoption, and 41 months for emancipation or adult transition. She considers those times far too long.
She’s seen heartbreaking extremes: children with more than 75 placements, children who age out of the system feeling abandoned, siblings torn apart for lack of a willing adoptive family. But what keeps her going are the moments when children find a permanent home through adoption.
What You Can Do to Help?
- Consider volunteering as a CASA (Court-Appointed Special Advocate). A CASA volunteer is a consistent voice for a child in the legal process. Social workers change, attorneys change, but a CASA can remain the steady presence that child sees throughout the case.
- Become a foster parent or adoptive parent. Steps include home studies, background checks, and training to ensure children’s safety, and typically take 6-12 months.
- Advocate for systemic change. Ask your local representatives to support policies that shorten foster care timelines, increase support for kinship placement, and increase funding for child welfare services.
Lisa’s work reminds us that every child deserves a place to belong, and together, we can help them find that forever home.