Adoption Networking
A great way to achieve a successful adoption
Adoption networking, activities employed by prospective adopting couples to reach adoption-minded birth parents, is the new emphasis in domestic adoptions. Adoptions which occur from these activities are termed private, privately arranged, directed, identified, or designated. The common characteristic in these adoptions is that the birth parents and adoptive couples have some sort of contact with each other before an attorney or adoption agency has contact with the birth parents. Networking methods break down into two categories: 1) word of mouth activities, and 2) classified advertising. Both methods are successful and represent a growing percentage of infant adoptions throughout the United States.
Word of Mouth
Word of mouth networking amounts to informing people that a couple is hoping to make contact with a pregnant woman who may be willing to place her baby with them. Methods of “spreading the word” are: 1) talking about it openly; 2) mailing profiles to friends, relatives, and those occupationally apt to know or meet birth parents; and 3) posting notices in public places and distributing advertising cards similar to business cards.
How to be Successful
Success in word of mouth networking correlates with the quality and quantity of one’s social contacts. Networking persons who have many contacts during the course of a day are likely to be successful if they are comfortable in talking about their hope to reach a birth parent. They are able to talk with large numbers of people who may just know of a birth parent.
Of special interest in word of mouth networking is the intermediary, the person who knows of the birth parent and then informs the networking couple. The intermediary can be a friend, relative, pastor, physician, counselor, or teacher—virtually anyone. When this person recommends a couple to a birth parent, it is powerful. Trust is the reason. This recommendation is more powerful even than the fact that a couple has a completed and approved adoptive home study.
Advertising
The use of classified advertising to locate a birth mother is rapidly increasing and spreading in those states where it is legal for adopting couples to advertise. Prospective adoptive families place advertisements in the “Personal” column of the classified advertising section of daily and weekly newspapers which are distributed to all postal addresses. Effective ads are very carefully written. They are intended to capture and communicate something about the couple that will sufficiently impress the birth parent reading the ad to cause her to call the telephone number listed.
Making Contact
Making contact with a birth parent who is willing to place her baby with a couple is not the end of the story. There must then be a means by which the adoption will be accomplished. In most states the choices are private attorneys or licensed adoption agencies.
Placement
Once the networking connection is made, the ultimate goal is a successful placement. There will be months of waiting, hoping, praying, and wondering if, finally when the baby is born, will the birth mother be able to follow through with her adoption plan. The probability of this actually happening increases dramatically when she receives support from professionals in birth parent issues and services. The likelihood of a successful placement is also greatly increased when both parties to the adoption are included in the counseling and educational processes of an enlightened adoption agency, rather than being left on their own during the weeks and months preceding birth and placement.
Popularity
There are many reasons why adoption networking has become so popular—most important is the fact that it works. It is the means by which couples can actually make their own adoptions happen. Couples are empowered and enabled, by their own efforts, to make their dream reality.
Adoption networking is also attractive to birth parents. By responding to a classified advertisement or being willing to accept a profile of a couple from someone they know and trust, birth parents can likewise be empowered in the adoption process. Through networking they can select and meet the family, have their pregnancy expenses paid, and negotiate a plan for future information about the child. As a result of their personal contact with the family they are likely to feel more secure and at peace with their decision to plan adoption.
How Can You Begin?
- Devote at least two hours.
- DO NOT do mass mailings—mail profiles and cover letters to personal friends, relatives, or professionals like doctors offices where you can make a personal connection (i.e. someone in the office knows you).
- Have school and club directories on hand as well as personal address book and church membership roster.
- Use the Yellow Pages and go through the categories to further remind you of people you know.
Who do you know?
- Professional Contacts: Former employers, former employees, trade or professional associates, former customers and clients, former competitors
- School Contacts: Schoolmates, high school classmates, college classmates, fraternity or sorority friends, organizations, groups (athletic, dramatic, debating, musical, etc.), teachers and parents of classmates
- Hobbies or Sports Contacts: Photography, chess, music, golf, tennis, public speaking, home movies, travel, amateur drama; fellow hobby members
- Public Service Contacts: Community fund, rescue missions, Salvation Army, family welfare, Y.M.C.A
- Household Contacts: Realtor, builder, building supply person, carpenters, plumbers, painters, landscape people, etc.
- Neighborhood Contacts: Neighbors, friends, former neighborhood people
- Automotive Contacts: Dealer, salesperson, gas station operator, tire supply person, auto insurance person, mechanics, etc.
- Daily Service Contacts: Grocer, mailman, laundry man, dry cleaner. Who are the people to whom you paid money to in the last month?
- Parenting Contacts: Teachers, other parents, school principals, tennis teachers, swimming teachers, dance instructors, etc.
- Church Contacts: Close your eyes and visualize pew after pew in your church; choose the men, women, and children you know best.
- Spouse’s Contacts: Work, hobbies, organizations, etc.
- Service Organization Contacts: Kiwanis, Rotary, political and neighborhood organizations
Examples of Networking
- Business Cards: Drop cards in bowls at restaurants or give to grocery store employees, waitresses, beauticians, or anyone you routinely see during the week.
- Adoptive Profile: Give your profile to everyone you know. Explain specifically what it is you would like them to do. Consider personal and professional contacts and always remember to follow up by calling or stopping in to make sure they’ve received your information. Don’t bother sending the profiles if you can’t make personal contact.
- Flyers: Make a flyer and distribute at grocery stores, laundry mats, bus stations, and restaurants. Also consider bringing flyers to mobile home parks, low-cost apartment complexes, or subdivided housing projects.
- Supermarket bulletin boards
- Newsletters: Use other people’s newsletters / publications.
Sections of this article taken from: “The Adoption Factbook” produced by the National Council for Adoption. Author: Richard Van Deelen, Founding Director of Adoption Associates, Inc.
