Adoption Profile

As a prospective adoptive parent, you've probably put a lot of thought into the desire to expand pr start a family. A lot of self-reflection has had to occur for you to get to this point. Once you've chosen the adoption route that will work best for you and once you've passed a home study, the next step is creating an adoption profile. This is essentially putting all of that reflection to paper, and it's also one of the most important steps in infant adoption.

advertisement

 

Profiles are advertisements for birth mothers meant to help her make informed decisions about her placement. They are the first impression she will have of prospective adopters and are therefore paramount in one's chance of being chosen for placement. There are many websites that allow adopters to post a profile. However, when working with a localized agency, an adoption profile may resemble a scrapbook. In both forms, it is full of photographs that represent one's lifestyle, memorable experiences and family members that may play an important role in the child's life.

In addition to posting plenty of photographs, couples are expected to write a "Dear Birth Mother" letter. These letters allow a couple to introduce themselves and share why they are looking to adopt an infant. These are also a platform for a couple to show support for a birth mother.

Because of how much weight an adoption profile carries in the placement process, prospective parents should be aware of a few do's and don'ts for crafting the ideal profile.

All of the photographs, layout and birth mother letter will come together to tell the story of the couple's life. It's important that there's a logical chronology to the progression of the photographs. Couples should build all photos around the big events in their life. College graduations, marriage or vacations. It's suggested that couples abstain from photographs of them in their swimsuits, if using vacation photos. Including photos of the adopters' drinking or smoking is also probably not the most appropriate image to put in a profile. Keeping things colorful and upbeat is incredibly appropriate, though. Birth mothers want to place with wholesome couples.

Birth mothers can get a sense for a couple's wholesomeness if the adopters choose to include a copy of the home study evaluation, resume or recommendation.