Adoption Agency or Private Adoption?

It is important for you to understand that an agency adoption and a private adoption are very different.  They both result in your rights as the biological parent being ended and with the child being adopted, but they way they get to this result is very different.  All adoptions fall into one of these two types and your selection will be critical in determining how the adoption proceeds, how your options and rights are addressed, and how you and your child adjust to the adoption process.

An agency child adoption occurs when the placement is arranged through a licensed child adoption agency, like Adoption Services.  Each licensed adoption agency has been carefully and fully investigated and monitored to make sure that it offers a full range of professional services to you and that is carefully screens and evaluates every adopting family and their home to assure a safe and loving placement for your child.

A private child adoption, as opposed to an agency adoption discussed above, occurs when the placement of the child is arranged through an private individual, often an attorney, physician, friend, or adoption facilitator. 

In an agency adoption you will be helped by someone (or a group of people) who has been approved and licensed by the state to help birth parents, to carefully and thoroughly screen adopting families and to supervise and monitor any adoption placement. The licensed adoption agency has the responsibility to watch out for you and your child both before and after the placement of your child.

The child adoption agency can help coordinate your prenatal care with the hospital and help make sure you get follow-up care.  The licensed adoption agency will very carefully screen all adopting families. They will check out state police, child abuse, and FBI records. They will carefully evaluate mental health histories, income tax records, references, marriage stability, child rearing attitudes, etc.

Additionally many agencies will bring in an attorney to help protect your rights.  And the child adoption agency can enforce the commitments and promises the adopting family has made regarding your receiving pictures, updates, seeing the child, etc, through a contract with the adopting family.

Another benefit is that most child adoption agencies, like Adoption Services, offer counseling at no cost to you. With our agency, Adoption Services, we are here to help you make the best decision for yourself and the baby. We do not automatically assume you will place your child for adoption. Our counseling is offered throughout the entire process -- now, when the baby is born, and even afterwards for as long as you need it. And the counseling we offer you is always free.

Child adoption agencies can be profit or non-profit, public or private, but the most important factor in selecting a child adoption agency is that they have met the state requirements and are fully licensed to provide you with a wide range of professional services. To check if a child adoption agency or organization is truly licensed, contact them and ask for their license number and the phone number of the licensing authority. Then call the licensing authority and confirm that the information given to you by the adoption agency is correct. Ask the licensing authority if there are any irregularities in the adoption agency history.  Every state has a licensing authority and each one will be glad to answer your questions.

A private child adoption can be very risky for you and your child. There are several reasons. First, the family, facilitator, and/or the referral source are working for the family, not you, to get your child placed with the family and they are most interested in protecting the adopting family and their rights, not yours or your baby's.  Another reason a private child adoption is so risky is that in a private child adoption you may not really know much about the family except what they allow you to be told. They may have gone through very little if any screening, so you may not have the comfort of knowing they are truly a good family. You can not be sure that they are stable, that their marriage is truly secure, or if they have a healthy outlook and a positive way of handling children.

Additionally, a private child adoption is risky because the family can promise you things -- like pictures and updates on the child. But they do not have to follow through with the promise because your rights to the child will be ended without conditions and you may have no way to enforce the family's promises, even if an agreement is in writing.

Without a licensed child adoption agency supervising the process, adoption can be a nightmare. When you read a horror story about child adoption in the news, it is most likely a private child adoption.  In fact, several states have outlawed private adoption and require all child adoptions be conducted only through a licensed child adoption agency.

While your attorney, counselor, doctor, or friend probably has your best interest at heart, based on almost 40 years of experience and after helping hundreds of birth mothers and birth fathers get out of horrible situations, I very strongly recommend you proceed only with a licensed child adoption agency.

Adoption Services is a fully licensed non-profit adoption agency and is able to help a birth mother or birth father living in any of the 50 states with either an open or closed adoption.  Adoption Services has helped over 9000 birth parents and families.  Feel free to contact us at Adoption Services if you have any questions or if you want our guidance or help.   There is never any fee to you as a birth parent whether you work with our agency or decide to work with someone else.  We still want you to receive the help you need and desire.