TAMPA, Fla. -- For 20 years, you could see their faces: An 8-year-old girl with chopped bangs and sad, brown eyes; a tall teenage boy with a shy smile; a 13-year-old girl with glasses, beaming between her three younger brothers.

Professional photographers teamed up with Heart Galleries across the country to provide portraits of children who needed families.

Those photos were shared on websites, in churches and at malls.

Thousands of strangers — some who had never considered adopting — fell in love with those faces and asked about bringing the kids home.

But two years ago, Florida became the first state to adopt a law that makes it illegal to share pictures of foster children with the public.

Now, to see photos of kids in Florida’s care, you have to go through a process that takes six months to a year: attend an informational session, take a series of classes, pass a background check and home study with inspections and interviews.

The law was intended to protect foster kids’ privacy — and keep them safe.

But some child welfare advocates say it’s hindering those children’s chances of being adopted. And causing prospective parents to seek kids from other states.

More than 15,000 children are in Florida’s foster care system, the third highest of any state.

The Children’s Network of Hillsborough County cares for 1,124 of them.

“We have seen both a decline in general inquiries and a decrease in the number of families moving forward in the adoption process,” Chief Executive Officer Terri Balliet wrote recently in an email to the Tampa Bay Times. She estimated about a 15% drop in potential adoptions since the law went into effect.

Historically, Balliet wrote, photos have been one of the best ways to recruit adoptive families. The images inspired an emotional connection.

Brigette Schupay, who runs the Heart of Adoptions Alliance and works with Heart Galleries throughout Florida, said inquiries to her offices have plummeted since the law went into effect.

“At first,” she said, “we thought our website was broken.”

In 2023, her agency averaged 15 inquiries every month. So far this year, she said, they have only gotten 55.

“It’s shocking,” Schupay said. “I’ve seen so many kids get adopted into wonderful homes because their portraits were in the Heart Gallery, because of mall displays. Pictures make all the difference.”

Former foster kids requested the restrictions on sharing their photos, said James Minter, director of advocacy for the Selfless Love Foundation. A national nonprofit dedicated to improving the child welfare system, the organization’s Jupiter office helped spearhead the legislation.

At a Florida Coalition for Children conference in 2022, Minter said, former foster youth were asked: What should change in the system?

Some had been adopted. Many had aged out without finding families.

Most said their top priority was to “close the pet shop.”

“They wanted control over their privacy,” Minter said. “They didn’t want their pictures and personal information plastered all over everywhere, for anyone to see.”

One young woman said after classmates saw her photo on an adoption site, they bullied her. Others complained that even after they had aged out of foster care, their photos remained online.

“The digital footprint is out there forever,” Minter said.

Minter’s organization reached out to Republican state Rep. Dana Trabulsy to sponsor a bill in the House.

It passed unanimously in both chambers.

Trabulsy didn’t return requests for comment about the law.

Adoption advocates say they understand the reasoning behind the new law — and its intent. But they worry about the unintended consequences.

“This came as a surprise for all the Heart Galleries across the state,” said Mary Kinirons, who ran the Broward County Heart Gallery. “No one was consulted.”

She and Matthew Straeb, who co-founded the Heart Gallery of America in 2008, met with legislators and representatives from Florida’s Department of Children and Families to alert them to the possible downsides after the law passed.

They warned about the complicated maze people would have to navigate to see faces of children they might fall in love with.

In the first months after the law went into effect, Kinirons said, inquiries to her Broward Heart Gallery dropped by half. In December, she dissolved the 20-year-old nonprofit. She worries more of Florida’s dozen Heart Galleries might close.

Straeb has been reaching out to the more than 70 Heart Galleries across the U.S. and Canada, warning them about what’s happening in Florida.

“It’s so frustrating,” he said. “They took something that had worked for 20 years and entirely eliminated that option.”

Some states, like Idaho, have cancelled their contracts for producing Wednesday’s Child TV segments promoting adoptable kids. Others are considering requiring agencies to substitute foster kids’ portraits with generic stock photos — or pictures generated by AI.

Heart Gallery kids are often older, disabled or part of sibling groups, who are difficult to find families for, Straeb said.

Connie Going, who helped start the Pinellas Heart Gallery, now runs Going Adoption Agency.

Going and other adoption experts help families sign up for classes, schedule home studies and get approved to go behind the locked website to, ultimately, see children. They find grants to offset educational and adoption costs. Foster children often can be adopted for $500 or less, Going said. Private adoptions can cost up to $30,000.

Even after the state approves people to proceed with the adoption process, Going said, they still hit roadblocks.

Each Heart Gallery vets its own potential parents, so if you want to look at kids throughout Florida, you have to apply to a dozen different agencies. Home studies are only valid for a year, so if it takes longer than that to match with a child, you have to start over.

“People are giving up,” Going said. “Or going to other states.”

On the national site AdoptUSKids, anyone can see portraits of foster children from states like Georgia, Alabama and Louisiana and read their bios. When you search for children in Florida, you see only their first names in big blue letters, adorned with images of bows and basketballs.

On Florida’s Explore Adoption site, the public can’t see anything. The “Child Search” tab leads you to login with an approved account.

If you are approved to see the kids’ portraits, the advocates said, many don’t match their brief bios. A boy who looks 6 is now listed as 16. “They’re supposed to update the photos every six months,” Going said.

The state Department of Children and Families tracks adoptions by fiscal year. In 2023-24, its annual report said 3,936 children were adopted from Florida. In 2024-25 — the most recent data – 3,671 kids were adopted. That’s a 6.7% drop in the first year since the prohibition went into effect.

It’s too early, many adoption advocates said, to ascertain the law’s long-term effects.

The Heart Gallery of Tampa, the oldest in Florida, has shifted its approach due to the new law.

The organization’s Facebook page features portraits of the back of a curly-haired child playing piano, a boy holding a basketball to obscure his face and another kid hidden behind a comic book.

“We had to figure out a plan and pivot,” said Lindsay Hermida, who runs the nonprofit. Besides making sure foster kids’ portraits are unidentifiable, staff now show success stories, photos of children who have been adopted. They have added more training and support for prospective parents. They hired a recruiter to reach out to people with approved home studies.

“We’ve really evolved in how we operate,” Hermida said. “So we haven’t seen much of an impact from this new law. Yet.”

RoseMarie Richardson, program director of the Heart Gallery of Pinellas & Pasco, also switched course. Her staff started having kids create “Heart Art,” drawings, paintings and collages that represent who they are or what they want. An artist from Florida CraftArt, who grew up in foster care, helps the children use an array of mediums to tell their stories. One girl used pipe cleaners to build a bed. She’d never had a new one.

When the law went into effect, “initially, we saw a decline in inquiries,” said Richardson, whose group oversees 140 children. But now that the kids’ art is on the website, and in libraries, churches and galleries across the counties, interest has rebounded to earlier levels.

Their art, she said, “is what’s tugging at people’s heartstrings now.”

Some foster children, Heart Gallery leaders said, were excited to have their portraits taken. Many didn’t have photos of themselves and loved getting dressed up. Older children always got to help choose which pictures went online or were hung in malls.

“It made them feel seen,” Straeb said. “It gave them agency, the chance to market themselves.”

The new legislation doesn’t allow kids to “opt in” and let their photos be used. But some foster youth are talking about ultimately adding that provision, Minter said, and they can still choose to put images on their own social media.

Tonya Ruble-Richter, president of EverForward, runs three group homes across Tampa Bay. The new law “sounds like a good idea,” she said. “But when you look at the effects, it’s really gray.”

Of course, foster kids should have a right to privacy, she said. “But the bigger goal is to get them somewhere safe permanently. In the hierarchy of needs, what’s more important?”

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