National Adoption Month: building families

NEW YORK (FOX 5 NEWS) - November is National Adoption Month, and perhaps the best way to understand the impact of adoption is to visit a family that’s been changed forever by the decision to adopt.

Meet Tanya Goode and her children 17-year-old John, 15-year-old twins James and Jasmine, and 13-year-old Jalen. These four siblings and their adoptive mother form a unit that developed after years under foster care in Goode's home led to her finally adopting the four siblings in what she calls a package deal.

With help from The New York Foundling, Goode received the four siblings in 2005 and finally embarked on the adoption process in 2009, helping to ease the burden of the foster care system.

While raising her young family required Goode to make sacrifices in her career at the Board of Education and as a hairstylist, she says she would do it all over again, and offers this advice to anyone considering adoption: "Give someone a home and love them."