About Us
The Adoption Council of Canada (ACC) and the Children’s Aid Society of Ottawa have partnered to launch the first Canadian Heart Gallery. This is an exciting pilot project in Canada dedicated to finding permanent homes for children and youth in foster care, beginning with those in Ottawa.
The Heart Gallery is a travelling photographic exhibit created to attract potential parents who will commit to adopting children and youth waiting in foster care. The Heart Gallery’s mission is to use the power of photography to capture the individuality and dignity of waiting children, to raise public awareness about their needs, to obtain support to meet those needs, and to find permanent homes for them.
The Heart Gallery project originated in the United States. U.S. jurisdictions that have created their own Heart Galleries have seen their adoption rates climb by 25 percent, overall. Ottawa is the first place in Canada to use this approach to recruiting families for our waiting children. We have 30,000 children and youth in Canada who need permanent families – 9,200 in Ontario alone. In Ottawa, 97 children and youth in care of the Children’s Aid Society need permanent families. Of those children and youth, 79 percent are aged 11 or older.
