FEATURE
Finding Family
26Health Helps LGBTQ+ Prospective Parents Realize Dream of Adoption BY DIANE SEARS
The more we investigate, the more we see there are thousands and thousands of teenagers in the system, and they feel there's no hope. They end up aging out. — Manny Carames
24 NOVEMBER 2021 | i4Biz.com
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rying to adopt a child can lead to hopes raised and then dashed when a birth mother changes her mind or something else in the process goes wrong. For prospective parents from the LGBTQ+ community, the heartbreak can become even more personal when they are turned down not for income, background check or health reasons but because of who they are. Manny Carames knows this because it happened to him and his partner. As the head of a growing adoption program at Orlando nonprofit 26Health, he wants to be sure it doesn’t happen to other qualified parents who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or questioning and are not always welcome or comfortable in a mainstream adoption system. To celebrate November as National Adoption Month, the comprehensive health care organization for LGBTQ+ people and their allies is emphasizing its adoption service, which shepherds people through one of the most important events of their lives.
“It's a white glove approach to bringing them through the process,” said Carames, the behavioral health director for 26Health. “Not all of our families are LGBTQ — some of them are straight allies as well. But for those who are part of the gay, lesbian and transgender community who do sometimes hit brick walls, we try to help them navigate around those.” Initiated about three years ago, the program went into research mode during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, when adoption activity slowed down. The team spent the time developing a pipeline to help people through both sides of the adoption process. “We worked hard on making strategic connections with some of the birthing clinics, OB-GYNs and larger hospital systems that have neonatal intensive care units to establish ourselves on the list of people they call.” Carames brought in Krystal Trocki, who worked for more than 20 years with the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) and is now a 26Health
