Adoption Support: The Role of Post Adoption Services Creating your forever family through adoption means welcoming a child into your home who will need to learn about and process their pre-adoption history. While helping them to do so within the safety of your love can be a joy, it can also occasionally present challenges that require extra support to navigate. One of the goals of the post adoption services provided by your adoption agency is to assist you and your child in successfully handling these challenges, even if they arise years after the adoption is finalized. Following are just a few of the ways in which these services can help.
Counseling There are many situations that may give rise to the need for counseling. For instance, adopted children (from all types of adoption) often experience a grieving process during which they work through many emotions and questions that arise from realizing that they were placed for adoption by their birth parents. Children who suffered some sort of trauma before their adoption may also experience challenges associated with those difficult events.
These feelings and challenges may require the intervention of a professional who is experienced in adoption counseling and who can provide expert support and guidance for your child. A counselor may also be an important source of support for you as you seek to help your child. One of the best resources for accessing this kind of counseling is the place where you received your adoption services in Texas. These organizations should be able to connect you with counselors who are familiar with the challenges that adoption can bring and who have successfully supported other families through struggles similar to the ones you are facing. As a result, if you find yourself needing or wanting professional help, even years after having completed your adoption, you should contact your adoption agency to request help connecting with a counselor.
Birth Parent Information Open adoption has helped to alleviate the previous lack of information that many adopted children experienced regarding their pasts. Now, this information is often available immediately, and adoptive families can provide it to their children when questions about their past arise. However, in the instances in which these materials are not already available to adoptive families, the child adoption agency can, upon request, provide certain information regarding the birth parents and their history. This material is usually non-identifying in order to protect the birth parents' privacy, but it includes a plethora of general information, such as their health history, educational backgrounds, and genetic history. In addition to this general information about the birth parents, you can request specific medical and legal information, such as facts about your child's birth, copies of lab test results, and a copy of the adoption order.
These documents can assist adoptive parents as well as adopted children in understanding their past and in making decisions about their future. For instance, medical information can guide parents in choosing how to manage or understand their child's health. One of the advantages of this type of post adoption service is that it is available not only to adoptive families while their children are minors but also to adopted children who have reached adulthood. As a result, even after your child is grown, he or she can access material about their birth parents if they wish to learn more about their past.
Searches If you do not wish to have a fully open adoption relationship with your child's birth parents, there may come a time when you, your child, or their birth parents will want to connect with each other. At these times, your adoption center in Texas may be able to provide you with the help you need to conduct or respond to these searches. The adoption agency usually serves as the intermediary between the people looking to connect and the person or people they wish to contact. For instance, if your grown child wishes to meet their birth parents, they can ask the adoption agency to use the information it possesses to conduct a search and present a request for contact to the birth parents. Alternatively, the adoption agency may approach you with a request from the birth mother to connect with your adopted child. Sometimes, birth parents and children can join a match program, which can then be used by the adoption agency to initiate contact between the parties if they wish.
Regardless of the method used, the adoption agency will conduct the search discreetly and sensitively. As a result, this service offers the members of the adoption the opportunity to connect with each other whenever they are ready to do so, while giving them the option of declining a request for contact if they are not comfortable taking that step. Typically, the agency will not guarantee the success of a search, due to potential difficulties of finding the person and because of the possibility that the person, once located, will not agree to contact. However, this service provides you, your child, and their birth parents with a chance at a deeper connection with the past while also respecting your wishes and privacy.
Finalizing your adoption does not mean that you are on your own in facing the needs that may arise as you raise your child. Instead, through post-adoption services, your adoption agency will serve as a resource for the help, support, advice, guidance, and information you need to successfully meet these needs. Adopting a child is an important decision that requires careful consideration. Are you contemplating adoption, or are you already planning to adopt a child? Do you have any idea about how or where to start? Action Adoption at Providence Place of San Antonio, Texas will guide you through the adoption process while making sure all your questions are answered. Contact them today to learn more about adoption and ways to get involved with our organization.