Adoption Services Founder
Adoptions Services' founder and director, Dr. Vincent Berger, has over 45 years of experience as a licensed psychologist, counselor, adoption facilitator, and devoted father.
As a pioneer in the field of adoption, Dr. Berger instituted many of the key concepts that protect birth parents and families, eliminating any deception or risk. Over 35+ years ago, Dr. Berger set out to create a specialized adoption program, Adoption Services, Inc., to provide the personalized care that birth parents and adopting families
Dr. Berger's Background
Dr. Berger's background is best described in his own words:
My adult and professional life began in 1968 when, at age 24, I received my Doctorate in Psychology and began teaching at the University of Pittsburgh. I loved teaching and helping my students learn and be excited about learning. But something was missing-- I did not feel I was helping people enough.
So, I began working as a school psychologist with young adults and specialized in helping pregnant teens in the Pittsburgh school system. It was very challenging because in those days there were no services for these young women and society was not yet accepting of unmarried and/or pregnant teens.
I was horrified at the lack of counseling, options, and other services available to help these young women. However, I was personally able to help so many of them and found the work so rewarding that after 7 years I decided to leave the University so I could devote more time to directly helping others.
I started a private counseling practice and also worked for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania helping mentally ill persons. In 1983, while driving along the river near Philadelphia, a friend shared with me his experiences with adopting families and birth mothers and the problems they had in finding a good, honest, and reliable adoption agency to help them.
Putting my concern for, and experience with, pregnant teens and young women together with what he was telling me, I decided to start an adoption agency. Not just any agency, but one that was dedicated to helping the pregnant moms and dads with the option of adoption where they would get the best and most comprehensive of services with never any pressure to proceed with an adoption.
My goal was to help them whether they kept the child, placed the child for adoption, or even decided to work with another agency.
After two years of effort and tons of required paperwork, in late 1985 I was approved to operate Adoption Services, Inc., as a fully licensed, private, non-profit agency. It was then that I really found what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
I have loved, and still love, helping the birth mothers, birth fathers, and adopting families. The hours I put in are long but never hard, since I find so much joy and strength in helping others.
I recently expanded the goals of Adoption Services to include the creation of the largest and best resource on the internet to assist pregnant women, parents and adopting families to find the information and help that they need. The result is the website you are now looking at and the other eight websites shown under our phone number at the top of the page.
On the more personal side of enjoying life, I worked hard at raising two wonderful daughters to successful adulthood. I am very close to, and proud of, my two daughters and sons-in-law, each of whom has been extremely successful in their own right.
Each of them has established a successful personal and professional life. However, busy as they are, they still have the time and desire to interact, without fail, with their "Dad", several times each week. I have also been blessed with many healthy grandchildren.
My pride in my children extends not only to who they are but also to what they do. There appears to be a driving force in my family's genes that leads us to help others. While I do my best to assist birth parents, adopting families and children, my eldest daughter is a social worker with a Ph.D. who has specialized in working with abused and abandoned children, with a hospice program, and with veterans.
My youngest daughter reaches out to help others through her work as a midwife and my brother and sister-in-law have taken on the task of helping the physically disabled; in fact they have developed a beautiful website designed to encourage the physically handicapped to overcome some of their psychological limitations.
Thank you for taking time and allowing me to share a little of my personal life and pride with you.
Please feel free to contact us and let me or my staff help you. When you call you can talk to one of the adoption coordinators that I have personally trained, or you can always ask for me directly.