I’ve touched on this before, but think it’s worth touching on it again. If you are pregnant and making an adoption plan, one of your options is to go through an adoption agency. Finding a reputable and ethical adoption agency can be tricky.

1. If you are wanting an open adoption, you need to make sure the agency you are choosing handles open adoptions. Some agencies may claim to handle fully open adoptions, but then in reality, they encourage more of a semi open adoption. If you get a bad vibe from an agency or they don’t seem to offer what you are looking for, find another agency!



2. Begin by looking up adoption agencies in the local yellow pages or online. If online, you can read a little information about them on their website, but keep in mind, they want you to come to their agency, so the information might be overly positive and biased.



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3. Call possible agencies to ask them if they handle open adoptions. If they say yes, ask them their version of an open adoption and let them explain what open adoption means to them before explaining what you are looking for.



4. Ask the agency the percentages of open adoption placements they had in the last year. Then the percent of semi open and closed adoptions. You will want the open adoption placement percentage to be highest.



5. Ask about counseling they may provide and options discussion. An ethical agency will not only talk to you about adoption, but should talk to you about parenting. You can not choose one option without exploring all of them.



6. Ask about their selection of families.

A few specific questions you may want to ask:

• What legal services are offered to expectant mothers making adoption plans?



• Do they provide pre and post counseling for birthmothers? How long is the post counseling?



• Do they provide a birthmother advocate or a birthmother mentor to help you throughout the entire process?



• Do they facilitate a birthmother support group?



• What guidelines do they have for working with adoptive parents?



• Is the agency affiliated with a certain religion and if so do they only work with couples in that religion?



• Is the agency willing to mediate should a problem arise in an open adoption and help you get the issue resolved with the adoptive parents?

Check out this checklist from the open adoption.org website. It provides seventeen different issues of concern when choosing an agency. The first five questions on the checklist you can typically answer from the yellow page ad or website, but the other twelve questions will require a short phone call to the agency. It is a great tool and worthwhile to utilize.

I also recommend reading this article written by birthmom and author Courtney Frey on adoption agencies.