Hi, my name is Emily Byford. I am a staff member here at Gladney and I am a caseworker for hopeful adoptive parents in our domestic infant program. I’m going to talk with you for a bit about the domestic infant adoption program at Gladney. So today we are going to talk about what is a domestic infant adoption. We’re going to talk about what services does Gladney offer to hopeful adoptive parents and to expectant parents who are planning adoption? We’re also going to talk about the fees at Gladney and where your investment is going. And then we’re going to talk about things that make a family successful in this program and how that could be.

But before we get into that, I want to just lay a foundation to say that Gladney has been placing children into forever homes for over 140 years. Another distinctive to know about Gladney is that we have an attorney on our staff who has been working in the adoption field for over 30 years. She’s lobbied for adoption at the federal level and has even helped write some of the Texas Family Code. And finally, I want to highlight that with our all-inclusive fee structure, we can give families the assurance that whatever the road looks like, we can help you get to placement, that bringing a child home becomes a matter of when that will happen and not if it will happen.

So let’s get started. So to get started, let’s talk about what is a domestic infant adoption in domestic infant adoption. Unlike other types of adoption, the expectant parent or birth parent is making an adoption plan voluntarily, either for a child that has yet to be born or typically for a child that has just been born. So because of this, most of the children that we place in this program are a month old or younger. And this program we’re placing healthy infants. And so we have a separate program for the rare instance where a child has more medical needs. And we can discuss that with you on a case by case basis if you have questions or if you’re facing a match, where that becomes the case.

Here at Gladney, both expectant parents and hopeful adoptive parents have separate teams of caseworkers to advocate for their needs and to see them through the entire journey. Expectant parents plan adoption for lots of varied reasons. It could be a lack of support system to surround them, to help them parent. It could be sometimes that they’re just not ready to be parents, that they want to accomplish other things in their life first. Or sometimes we do see expectant parents whose mental health, state or addiction makes it impossible for them to parent. And they choose to place the child for adoption rather than the child going into state care.

Gladney helps expectant parents in lots of different ways. We provide options counseling at each step of the way to ensure that they feel great about the plan that they’re making for their child. We connect them with resources within their community to make sure that their survival needs are met and that they are in a great place to make a plan. And finally, we work with them to match with a family to determine what is important for them and the family, to take placement of their child and to help them find a family that feels really comfortable for them.

For hopeful adoptive parents, the services look similar. Each family has a caseworker that’s going to meet with them regularly over the phone, over Zoom and sometimes in person to get to know them and to make sure that they feel connected to Gladney and that they feel known and understood and that we have the information that we need to find a great match for their family for each match. We offer legal advice and guidance and we work with attorneys all over the US to ensure that we are able to get termination of birth parent rights so that the adoption is secure. We make a commitment to our families that your family for life here at Gladney, that our services don’t end when the child enters your home, but that that’s when they begin.

We have a post-adoption department that’s available for the rest of the child’s life and even beyond for support and resources. And we also have a network of families all over the US for social support and for advocacy, and so that you’re not alone in being a family that’s grown through adoption. So let’s talk a little bit more about what a Gladney adoption looks like. Most adoptions today have some degree of openness. So for a family to be a good fit for this program, we would want you to be open to at least a yearly visit with your child’s birth parent. I get that. That could be scary. And we’re going to talk a little bit more about that later. Beyond that, though, families can choose how much information they share.

Gladney will share your first names, the type of work that you do and the state that you live in. Sharing anything beyond that is up to you when it feels right. Most families will send picture and letter updates, and that can happen in lots of different ways. Some families will do that by email. Some families might create a Google Voice number or find another way to keep in touch with the child’s birth parents. Another factor that I mentioned is visits. Most visits happen at a neutral location so that everyone feels comfortable and most of the time the forever family will travel to the birth family for that visit to happen.

So let’s talk a little bit more about open adoption. Why is that important and what does it look like? So we see that in most cases, open adoption is in the best interest of the child, it is in the best interest of the birth parent, and it’s even in the best interest of the forever family for the child. Knowing their roots, their biological origin has such an impact on their building of a healthy sense of self and their sense of identity. It removes answer many of the questions that we hear from adoptees as to why they were placed for adoption and what their story looked like for birth parents. I’m sure that you can imagine if you step back, but placing a child for adoption is an impossibly difficult task and we see that birth parents feel more able to process the grief of placing a child for adoption when they see how that child is doing, when they see that child thriving in their forever home and knowing that they still have some connection to them for the rest of the child’s life. We see that open adoption can be beneficial for the child’s forever family. For one thing, you have the birth parents as a resource to go back to. When the child starts to ask questions, you can begin to help them build that story. And finally, research shows that open a. Adoption helps in the building of healthy attachment for everyone involved.

All right. Let’s shift gears to the elephant in the room. We recognize that the fee for a domestic infant adoption is a lot for any family. So let’s break it down a little bit and talk about how families are able to reach that goal of gathering the funds for their adoption and also where that money goes and what our fee structure goes towards.

So at Gladney, all of the families expenses are rolled into one fee. What this means is that you won’t have to worry about how much a birth mother’s living expenses are or what her medical expenses are. You won’t have to worry about if a match falls through. Have I lost funds? Instead, our fee structure is the same for every family, regardless of what the specifics of your journey look like until you take placement of a child.

While our fee may seem high as you do your research and look at other agencies, you may find that lower fee quickly increases as they add on for different services that are rolled into our fee or that money can be lost if a match were to fall through. Our entire fee is not paid all at once. Instead, it is divided into installments at distinct stages of your adoption journey so that it makes it more attainable for each family.

And I want to recognize that some families find success gathering these funds in lots of different ways. I want to make sure that, you know that there are grants, there are scholarships available for families seeking adoption. Additionally, families have found such support leaning into their community. I know of a family that raised $10,000 from one garage sale. We are happy to speak with you about ways to make that happen and give you ideas to start your brainstorming for how it can work for you. Next, let’s talk about what makes a family successful in our program and what are we looking for in pre applications. Some things to know are that families in this program should be open to a child of either sex. The first thing that we look at to determine if our program is a good fit for our family is what the family might be open to in an expectant parents’ background. As I stated before, we see a diverse pool of expectant parents that are planning adoption. And so, while we would never want to place a child into a family where it’s an uncomfortable situation, we want to encourage our families to be open to a variety of factors in an expectant parents’ background so that we have more opportunities to share your family with expectant parents that are looking for a forever family for their child. Even for families that are open to a great many factors in the expectant parents’ background, our current wait time falls right in line with the National average for domestic infant adoption. We can guess right now that families will wait about two years from when they become active in our program to when they take placement of their child.

Additionally, we are looking for factors that would go into the home study process. We want to see an imperfect but healthy, long-standing relationship. We want to see financial stability. We want to see that you have a support system around you that’s going to be able to rally around and love on you and your baby when it’s time finally, for a family to be successful. I just want to acknowledge that this is a process that requires a great deal of transparency and vulnerability. And so, I want you to be prepared to be open and honest with us about what your life has looked like and what your journey has looked like and what you’re hoping for in your family.
So, what’s next from here? There are a couple of different paths that you could take if you have more questions. We would love to speak with you personally and address your questions one on one with you so you can email us at adopt domestic infant at Gladney dot org. Additionally, there will be a link to schedule a one-on-one conversation with an intake specialist for this program. Finally, if you’re ready to get started today, I would encourage you to submit our pre application. This is a document that gathers information about the family, and we will use it to determine if we think that we could be a fit for your family’s needs. When that determination is made, we’ll reach out to you and invite you to our orientation to learn more about the program and to get started.

Thank you so much for joining me today. I hope that this has helped in your journey. We wish you the best in whatever the road to growing your family looks like for you.