Back to School
Promoting adoption, blended families in the schools
The backpacks are packed, the school lunches made - it's the time of year when children bid farewell to the summer and begin the new school year.
However, children aren't the only ones who should learn something new this year. Back to school is also a great time for adoptive parents to educate their child's teachers about positive ways to promote
adoption and blended families in the school environment.
According to the U.S. Census, 1 in 25 households with children has at least one adopted child. As adoption becomes more normalized across the nation, more parents are helping educate teachers, school
administrators and other peers about adoption.
The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute has released a paper aimed at educating educators about adoption issues. Adoption in the Schools: A Lot to Learn highlights important areas for teachers to take
into consideration regarding adoption. Subjects include ways to speak positively about adoption with their classes, how to deal with hurtful comments some children may make about their adopted classmates
and how to amend class assignments that adopted children may be sensitive to, such as assignments centered around the child's baby pictures, as not all adopted children have photos of themselves as
babies.
Read the full version of Adoption in the Schools: A Lot to Learn.
For more information or ideas on how to promote adoption in your local school, read these tips courtesy of Adoptive Families
magazine.
In Their Own Words
Matthew, Brynn and Jackson's Adoption Story
We have a unique story and I wanted to take the time to share it. In March of 2008 we adopted our baby boy Jackson from American Adoptions. He has truly been a blessing to us and I wanted to share the
story of how we came to be a family!
We had been
looking into adoption for about a year before we actively started pursuing an agency as we had already gotten a home study completed. Brynn had sent for an information packet and we had submitted our
application to American Adoptions to begin the process when we stumbled across the "Adoption Situations" link on their website. There they post situations that fall out of the scope of the "normal" program
categories. That is where sweet little Jackson's situation was listed, he had already been born. Brynn called Matt and read him the situation and asked him if they could request more information about the
situation. She emailed Sarah one of the counselors assigned to the situation and asked for more information and that we were interested. Sarah provided us with more information and asked us for our
homestudy. We also put together a "mini" profile as we had not gotten that far in the process with the agency. That is where the waiting game started. Sarah had to meet with birth mom and present her the
profiles for her to choose from. The wait was nerve racking as we waited for Sarah to get back to us on if we were chosen or not. We received the call a few days later. Gloria liked our profile and wanted to talk
to us! We had a conference call to talk with Gloria - it was pain staking knowing that this woman would decide our future on if we could be the parents of her child! She liked us and decided that she wanted us
to be her child's parents. Over the next few days we scrambled around to get the documents needed together and to prepare to go and get Jackson...we got everything done in time but the agency had lost contact
with birth mom and she needed to sign the TPR. We waited and waited to find out when she was going to sign so we could get our baby. Days turned into weeks-the wait was excruciating. Then we got the call
that they had located birth mom and she was going to sign. We could make the trip down within 24 hours. We could hardly believe what had transpired within a month's time. We went from just looking at
agencies to being matched to a baby boy. We traveled down to get him-we had a nice lunch with Gloria and the social worker she was working with. He is a beautiful baby and we melted at the first sight of him!
It was Easter when we went to get him so we spent a nice Easter weekend with our extended family and they all got to meet our new son! It has been over a year now and we communicate with him birth mom via
email-she receives pictures and letters. Our experience was not a typical situation but we hope to work with American Adoptions when we decide to adopt again!
Editor's Note: To view our adoption situations, click here.
Questions & Answers With Laurie
 Laurie
Walker
Hello everyone, my name is Laurie Walker and I am an Adoptive Family Specialist with American Adoptions.
I have worked with many birth mothers and adoptive families in my time here at
American Adoptions and love being able to watch families form through adoption.
Q.
What happens if the baby is born with major health concerns outside our Adoption Planning Questionnaire (APQ) and outside of our match?
A.
If new health information becomes known that is outside of your APQ during your match or after the baby is born, you are allowed to reconsider whether or not you would like to remain in the match. For
example, if during the match, the birth mother's doctor learns the baby will have an uncorrectable medical condition, that is cause to reconsider if you want to remain in the match or not. Even if the baby is
born and you've flown all of the way to the hospital to be there with the baby and birth mother yet learn at that time the baby has some type of health problem that is not correctable nor comfortable for you to
proceed, you have the option to decide not to continue with that adoption. Although not common, drug use is also another example of health information that could have initially been unknown yet present
itself during the match. If the new information regarding the birth mother's substance abuse falls outside a family's APQ, that family would be allowed to reconsider proceeding with the match. Despite how
emotional the choice would be for a family not to proceed if new information became available that is outside a family's comfort level and APQ, no family should proceed if the situation does not feel secure
doing so. Our agency will continue with the birth mother's adoption plan and assist her in placing the child with a family that is most suited to meet that child's needs. Our agency will also be available to
support the adoptive couple who had to make that difficult decision to ensure they too are emotionally handling the disappointment at hand. The family in that situation would be allowed to return to an active
status once they felt emotionally ready to do so and their profile would be shown to new potential birth mothers.
It's very important to understand how extremely rare anything like this happens and shouldn't be something you worry yourselves about during a match. By far, most of the babies American Adoptions
assists in placing for adoption are very healthy newborns.
Have a question for American Adoptions?
No matter what stage of the adoption process you are at, there are bound to be questions. Feel free to
submit your question to us for discussion in future newsletters.
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