Preventing a Disrupted or Overturned Adoption
Most prospective families considering domestic adoption worry about birth parents changing their mind. Families often think the organization they choose has little effect on whether an adoption disrupts or fails. This article will help see why the organization you choose can have a dramatic effect on whether your adoption is successful or ends up disrupted. You can and should choose an organization that takes the steps necessary to lower the number of disruptions. So how do you know which organizations have lower disruptions? It is easiest to start by understanding which organizations have higher disrupted and failed adoptions.
Below are reasons why adoptions fail with many adoption organizations:
- Counseling or case management is provided by staff with no counseling or social work related degree. Would you have a mechanic perform heart surgery on your spouse, simply because the mechanic is good with his hands?
- Counseling is provided by a counselor who may be experienced in adoption but doesn’t have much experience in working with birth parents. Just because a doctor performs surgery does not mean he has performed many heart surgeries.
- Only 10% of the adoption professionals primarily counsel birth parents, the remaining focus on home study or legal parts of the process. Of those 10% who have experience counseling birth mothers, less than 1% counsel more than 10 birth mothers a year. Would you feel comfortable going to a heart doctor who only performed a few heart surgeries a year or would you rather go to the best heart doctor in the world who successfully performs hundreds a year?
- The organization doesn’t make counseling or case management mandatory. Find out below why this can be devastating.
Most Attorneys and law centers commonly offer counseling “if the birth mother needs it” or have unqualified staff talking with birth parents, resulting in more disrupted or overturned adoptions.
Why?
Unlike many attorneys and law centers, experienced adoption agencies know that every birth mother experiences a range of emotions in making her adoption decision. Experienced adoption agencies also understand most birth mothers don’t think they need counseling because they think counseling is only needed for those with “problems.” Adoption counseling is not like regular counseling where someone might have trouble dealing with a particular problem. Adoption counseling and case management is needed to help pregnant women sort through present emotions and prepare for future emotions. This leads to safer and more successful adoptions.
It is easier to understand the need for adoption counseling or case management by thinking about how many emotions birth mothers feel in the initial stages:
- She finds out she is pregnant.
- She doesn’t want to be pregnant.
- The birth father and her parents are mad at her for getting pregnant.
- She worries that she can’t afford to take care of another child.
- She worries that the birth father won’t provide any help financially or otherwise.
- Her family lives to far way or won’t help out.
- She thinks adoption might be the best option.
- She has to deal with some family member or friend being against adoption.
- She has to deal with some family member or friend being against parenting.
- Everyone is trying to tell her what to do.
- Someone tells her adopted kids aren’t loved as much as biological ones.
- She reviews some family profiles and really likes a few of them.
- Her belly is getting bigger; she has to decide what to do.
The above is only the initial stages; there are many more emotions a counselor and case manager can help them work through.
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