Allyssa is a fun-loving teenager with a great sense of humor.

Allyssa, who is 14, enjoys arts and crafts, dancing and singing. She is an active girl who is healthy and has many interests and strengths.

She would like to visit Egypt someday. She has studied the country in school and is interested in all that has happened there.

Her favorite subject in school is not history, though. It is science. Allyssa enjoys the hands-on activities and experiments she gets to do in science class. She works hard in school and is proud of what she has accomplished there.

Allyssa is also in the chorus at school because she loves to sing.

In her free time after school, Allyssa enjoys being outdoors. Her favorite activity outside is to swim in a lake. Allyssa has developed some positive peer relationships in her current home and enjoys spending time with friends. Allyssa wants to belong and likes to be with others.

Allyssa participates in weekly therapy, which helps her to address her history of abuse and to help her learn to regulate her emotions. She continues to make gains in her therapeutic work and to understand her past to the best of her abilities.

Her family’s involvement in her treatment will continue to help her heal. Therapy will also help her to transition into an adoptive family, and again the family’s involvement with this therapy will help the process.

Allyssa hopes to have a forever family that has horses or will continue to let her ride. She has quite a passion for horses and enjoys riding and caring for them. Allyssa would do well in a home where she is the only child or where there are younger children. Ideally, the family for Allyssa would have a stay-at-home mother who could help to provide her with the nurture, structure, stability and consistency that Allyssa needs.

Allyssa has contact with a sister and former foster parents and she feels these are important connections to maintain. Parents who understand this and who can help provide opportunities for Allyssa to have those contacts are needed.

An adoption subsidy may be available to the most appropriate family.

Allyssa is one of the 153 children in the care of the state Department of Health and Human Services who are seeking an adoptive family.

Based in Gardiner, A Family for ME is a nonprofit program that works in collaboration with DHHS to find foster and adoptive families for Maine children in care.

For more information about Allyssa or other children available for adoption, please contact A Family for ME toll free at 1-877-505-0545 or visit www.AFamilyForMe.org and see the Heart Gallery of photographs of some of the many children awaiting a forever family.