Adoption Agencies
Adoption Services: What Does an Adoption Agency Do?
Adoption is complicated. Whether you are a potential birth parent or a hopeful adoptive parent, being clear on the who and what of the process can be challenging, especially when attempting to put together an adoption team.
There are various adoption professionals — adoption agencies, adoption facilitators, adoption law firms, and more. Unfortunately, it’s easy to confuse who does what and who you should choose to complete your adoption.
No matter who you choose, you’ll want to ensure your professional prioritizes all the adoption services you need. This may sound like common sense, but not everyone in the adoption world offers the same services. You’ll also want to ensure that their adoption services are top quality.
When doing your research, you will want to ask any adoption professional you talk to whether or not they offer the following adoption services and benefits:
ADOPTION COUNSELING AND EDUCATION
Adoption can be confusing for a newcomer, but it’s also an emotional time. Ideally, your family and friends will provide a good support system for you, whether you’re thinking of placing a baby for adoption or hoping to grow your family through the process. However, there may be times when that’s not enough; your family and friends are probably not adoption veterans. This is where your agency kicks in. You’ll want a personal adoption specialist to make sure you’re doing okay and that you understand everything that’s happening.
For a pregnant woman considering adoption, this counseling may come in the form of helping her decide whether or not adoption is the right decision for her. An adoption specialist should never tell an expectant mother what to do about her pregnancy; they are simply there to help potential birth parents work through their situation and make the best decision for themselves and their babies. When a woman chooses adoption, the agency should provide 24/7 adoption support; pregnancy isn’t confined to business hours only. You’ll also want to check what post-adoption services will be available to birth parents and adoptive families.
For hopeful adoptive parents, an adoption specialist should be available to guide them through every step, from paperwork to understanding the matching process to how to communicate with birth parents. When an adoptive parent calls their agency, their point of contact should always be their adoption specialist.
MATCHING PROCESS
The matching process is the one by which birth parents choose an adoptive family for their child. You may have already identified prospective adoptive parents or a birth mother to adopt from. Still, if not, you’ll want to make sure the adoption assistance your professional offers includes a matching service. They should also invest in adoption advertising to attract more adoptive families and prospective birth parents. The more options you have in the matching process, the better you’ll feel about your eventual decision.
Different adoption programs will probably operate differently, but you’ll need to be sure the matching system your professional has puts a high importance on birth parents being able to select the adoptive family. For example, suppose a prospective birth mother cares about where the family lives, their community, traditions, or the number of children they have. In that case, she should be able to specify all of that. She has chosen adoption to give her baby the best life imaginable; it’s her right to feel assured that the family she’s placed with can provide that.
However, adoptive couples should still get to play a role in matching with a birth mom. While the birth parents ultimately choose the adoptive family, the adoption agency should allow adoptive parents to determine what they’re comfortable with in terms of adoption situations. They’ll then create an adoptive family profile that will tell birth parents about themselves and their lives, complete with photos and any information that makes their family unique. Some agencies even help adoptive families create video profiles, which give birth parents a better sense of who they are and why they would be a good family for an adopted child.
FINANCIAL PROTECTION
Financial support is significant for all parties in adoption. Still, it will look very different depending on whether you’re a birth parent or an adoptive parent.
For birth parents, adoption should be free. Not only should a birth mom never have to pay for any adoption service, but she should be able to get financial adoption help in terms of medical, legal, living, and other pregnancy-related expenses. The adoptive family should cover this, and your adoption professional should help to facilitate this. Choosing adoption as a birth parent is already an immense sacrifice; birth parents shouldn’t encounter any financial difficulties. The adoption agency should help prospective birth mothers ensure they are completely covered during their pregnancies.
Most prospective adoptive parents probably already know they will have to pay for an adoption. Depending on the kind of adoption they’re pursuing, that has the potential to be expensive. Before giving their hard-earned money to any adoption professional, hopeful parents will want to learn what will happen in the event of a disruption, should they experience one.
Adoption disruption is emotionally heartbreaking, and adoptive parents want to ensure their professional doesn’t take advantage of it. Some agencies provide a “rollover” service, meaning they transfer adoption funds into a new situation without giving adoptive parents a chance to reevaluate their adoption professional or adoption decision. Some don’t give any money back at all. Adoptive parents will want to choose an adoption professional who will immediately refund their money so they can decide how to proceed.
Don’t assume that an adoption professional will handle a disruption in a way that minimizes the blow; make sure you choose one with a bit of insurance.
LEGAL SERVICES
In any form of adoption, you’ll need adoption assistance from an attorney at some point. They’ll help ensure everything is done legally and above the table in an adoption. Birth parents’ rights must be legally terminated, and the adoptive parents must complete specific steps to legally finalize the adoption.
An attorney will, of course, be able to provide these adoption services but likely won’t offer many (if any) other adoption services. Adoption agencies, on the other hand, frequently have trusted adoption attorneys they provide to those that work with them in addition to their other services.
CONTACT MEDIATION
Adoptions are not the closed, secretive affairs they once were. Openness in adoption benefits all adoption triad members — adoptive family, birth parents, and adoptee — and you’ll want a professional to help you facilitate that openness. It can be hard to know how to talk to the adoptive family if you’re a birth parent or the birth family if you’re an adoptive parent. Your adoption professional should help you in this process, whether acting as a go-between for exchanging information or giving advice on how to best communicate.
SCREENING SERVICES
It’s very important that the adoption professional you work with have a screening process for both adoptive families and birth parents. Everyone should be fully committed to adoption. The birth mother and her baby must be safe and healthy, and the adoptive family must have a safe environment for a new child. A thorough screening process employed by an adoption professional will help to protect everyone in the process.
Adoption itself is an emotional experience; any professional you choose should be prepared to help you adopt, help you place your baby for adoption, or help you decide what’s best for your family. When choosing an adoption professional to add to your adoption team, make sure that the adoption services you are getting are tailored to you instead of the professional’s gains.
You can call, text, or email me anytime -call or text: 785-217-4603, email: lisa@theadoptiongroup.com, or Facebook message: https://www.facebook.com/theadoptionlawgroup/. The office phone is answered 24 hours a day, every single day. I make every effort to respond to emails and text messages within a few minutes of receipt.
POSITIVE ADOPTION LANGUAGE DISCLAIMER: These blog posts are written using language people use when searching for help with their adoption plans. Unfortunately, while many of us understand what positive adoption language means, most expectant moms that come to me at first do not. Like it or not, the search term, "how do I give up my baby for adoption," is the most common. If I do not include those words in the blog posts and instead write "how do I create an adoption plan for my baby," my website will not show up in most expectant moms' search results in Google.
