Adoption Costs

by 1-800-HOMESTUDY

Since cost is important to every adoptive family, it is important to understand exactly what an adoption professional's fees cover and what they do not. Not knowing this fact can lead you to spending thousands of more dollars than you were prepared to spend. With the assistance of numerous adoption professionals, 1-800-Homestudy has a seven step tutorial on comparing all services needed in adoption.

Since there are hundreds of fee structure combinations in adoption, it is helpful to refer to this tutorial so you can be certain what your professional fees do and do not cover.

Keep in mind, most adoption agencies, attorneys, and facilitators only provide an estimated cost but do not clearly explain the following:

• Except for large agencies, most do not include ALL FEES in their adoption estimates.
• Except for large agencies, most do not INCLUDE costs of working with birth mothers who do not place.
• Larger programs help protect family's from losing large sums of money on adoptions that do not work out.

After reading this chapter, you will be able to decide what adoption program will best fit your needs. In order to compare each program equally. We broke the services down into basic categories and then explained how each program handles this part of the process.

The categories are:

1. Advertising - The money spent to locate birth mothers considering adoption. It is simple. You either place the ads or the organization places the ads.

2. Initial Intake - It is the initial call the birth mother makes to learn about adoption. In most cases, the adoption professional handles this call but in some cases the adoptive family handles the call.

3. Counseling - The counseling provided to the birth mother

4. Case management - The organization and planning of the adoption

5. Legal - Legal process(es) needed to make the adoption complete.

6. Travel - Travel if needed by the adoption professional(s)

Below is a list of services and the corresponding domestic organizations. Some domestic organizations either provide the services or expect the adoptive family to perform the services themselves or find another organization to handle those services. You can see at a glance which services are offered by each domestic organization.

	Large agency	Attorneys	Small agency	Middle agency	Facilitators
Advertising	*			Occasionally	*
Initial Intake	*			Occasionally	*
Counseling	*		*	*
Case management	*	*	*	*
Legal work	*	*	*	*

Regardless who performs the services, the fees for those services can be at-risk, which means you could lose the money for those services if the birth mother changes her mind during her pregnancy. Some organizations better protect their adoptive families from financial risk should the birth mother change her mind during the pregnancy.

	Large agency	Attorneys	Small agency	Middle agency	Facilitators
Advertising	No risk	At-risk	At-risk	Risk varies	Some risk
Initial Intake	No risk	At-risk	At-risk	Risk varies	No risk
Counseling	Minimal risk	At-risk	At-risk	Minimal risk	At risk
Case management	No risk	At-risk	At-risk	No risk	At risk
Legal work	Some risk	At-risk	At-risk	Some risk	At risk

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