How to Find the Right Safe and Loving Home for Your Child?
Over the past 45+ years our not-for-profit adoption agency and I have helped birth parents and families from all 50 states. We have completed over 900 successful placements and we have a five-star rating on Google. You can always visit our testimonial pages (see the link on the right). Please contact us toll-free at 1(800)943-0400 and visit the link Ways we can help you.
Selecting just the right loving family for your child involves;
1) clarifying what requirements YOU have for the family, such as their age, marital status, religious affiliation, an open or closed adoption, sexual orientation, etc.;
2) a professional and independent screening and evaluation of the family (not just a pretty set of pictures and the family’s description of themselves); and
3) for you to receive as much detail about the family as you want in deciding on a final match.
Our in-depth psychological and social evaluation process includes multiple interviews with each adopting person, the stability of their relationship, background information regarding themselves, their family, their interests, medical history, attitudes toward adoption, discipline practices, child abuse & criminal record & FBI clearances, personal references, physical examinations, income tax records, a tour their home and their neighborhood, and much more.
How is the family Screened and Evaluated?
The screening of the family can be done by you, the adopting family's attorney, a referral service, a person hired by the adopting family to approve them, or by a licensed child adoption agency. Clearly, the adopting family's attorney, a referral source, or people hired to approve the family are not exactly objective. They all want to approve the family and present them in the most positive light. If they don't, the family can simply hire someone else to redo the whole thing until they get what they want.
The best, most careful, objective assessment can be done by a licensed child agency that has the child's interests at heart. Once an adoptive family has been pre-approved by the child adoption agency, you can find out about the family to make sure you are comfortable with this family. And this way you know the family has already passed a rigorous, objective, unbiased screening process.
The official name of this evaluation of the adopting family is called the Home Study. A really good Home Study takes about 20 hours to complete. It includes an in-depth psychological and social assessment of each adopting person as outlined above.
After the families have been pre-screened is when you should enter the process of helping to select the family for your child. At that point, you can meet and select the family yourself, let the child adoption agency do the whole selection job, and/or you can set requirements (religious affiliation, marital status, age, etc.) you want the agency to use in selecting the family and then let them do the rest.
Finally, the child adoption agency should be prepared to tell you if they have ever had one of their placed children be abandoned, neglected, or abused. The adoption agency should be willing to tell you this and you can confirm it with the agency's license authority.
Even after the placement is completed, the child adoption agency staff will follow up with the adopting family, making sure the child continues to flourish. Frequent home visits, telephone conversations, doctor's reports, pictures, and updates are a regular part of every one of our adoptive placements.
What to do if you need more Help?
Adoption Services is a fully licensed non-profit adoption agency that helps birth mothers living in any state in the U.S. The Agency can also help a U.S. citizen living in any foreign country. Adoption Services has helped over 9000 birth parents and families. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions or if you want our guidance or help. We can make sure your child is placed with the perfect family, your rights are protected, and that you receive all the financial assistance and medical help as well as other types of help that the law allows. There is never any fee to you as a birth parent whether you work with our agency or decide to look elsewhere. Please visit the link "Ways we can help you".
Can we Help a Birth Mother Living in Any State?
We are licensed in multiple states and are able to help a birth mother, birth father, and adopting family living in any of the 50 U.S. states and even U.S. citizens (birth parents and families) that are living in other countries.