More than 100 adoptions finalized on National Adoption Day in Maricopa County
At an attorney's table on Saturday afternoon in a small west Phoenix courtroom, 6-year-old Isaiah patiently waited to take on his new last name.
"Congratulations. I now pronounce you a family," Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Pamela Svoboda said to cheers.
To Isaiah's right, Tanasha Robertson, 42, wiped tears as she and her wife, Leanna Jones, 35, would now be Isaiah's parents after fostering him two and a half years ago. Isaiah was among 110 children whose adoptions were finalized at the Durango Juvenile Court Center during Maricopa County's annual National Adoption Day event.
Sporting a faux hawk and metal chain, Isaiah would now be a Jones-Robertson. The clan has nine children in total, including five the Chandler couple previously adopted.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Robert Brooks completed three hearings at the event, which is the same number he usually does weekly. Brooks said the legal process for adoption in the county takes about four to five months. None of the hearings Saturday was contested, he noted.
Before finalizing any adoption, Brooks and 29 other judges who took hearings on Saturday reviewed the petition to adopt, the consent and report filings from child protectives services and testimony from the child case worker.
"(These adoptions) provide these children with stability and permanency in a home that is safe and able to meet their needs. A lot of these children are coming from homes with instability because of drugs or abuse or significant neglect, and almost all have suffered some form of trauma because of that," Brooks said.
Almost all of the adoptions at the event were of children removed by the state from their original home.
"(Adopting parents) are heroes in my mind that they're opening their homes to these children, so that these children can be safe and grow up to be healthy," Brooks said.
Jones and Robertson's adoption attorney, Kathryn Pidgeon, 66, has done close to 4,000 adoptions in 33 years and has taken part in the county event since 2001.
"We've been the leader in the country for this event," Pidgeon said of Maricopa County, pointing in part to how National Adoption Day is always held on its designated Saturday and proceedings are open to the public during the event.
The number of adoptions during National Adoption Day is larger than in other participating jurisdictions in the U.S., according to Pidgeon. The number of volunteers — 135 this year — is also usually higher than in other places, Pidgeon mentioned.
The in-person event was on a pandemic pause in 2020 and 2021, being done through videoconferencing in Maricopa County, Pidgeon said. But adoptions never ceased.
"Maricopa County never stopped. We never had one adoption delayed because of COVID," Pidgeon said.
Outside the court center building, families mingled in between tents and balloons as some children climbed an inflatable slide while a DJ played pop hits in the background.
From the start of the event, it was a celebration for Isaiah as the Jones-Robertson family arrived at the court center in a limousine.
All of the Jones-Robertson family members had a personalized black T-shirt. In white lettering, Jones' shirt read "MOM," Robertson's read "DAD" and Isaiah's read "BROTHER" — each shirt with the words, "biological," "adoptive" and "foster" with a red strikethrough.
After the formalities were over with, Isaiah's new parents said they were going to treat him to ice cream or "whatever he wants," Jones said with a laugh. And they were going to start planning the Christmas gift he requested: Disneyland.
Jones and Robertson had some advice for those looking to follow them into parenthood.
"There's a lot of kids out there that you can adopt," Jones said. "I would definitely take the first steps on finding more information on how you can be involved in these kids' lives."
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: National Adoption Day gives 110 Maricopa County kids new homes
