Why is training so important in the Adoption Process?

Hi! My name is Stephanie and I am the founder and executive director of A New Beginning Adoption Agency (Adoptions, Crisis Pregnancy Services and Counseling). I am an adoptive parent of a now 13 year old daughter from China. My husband and I adopted her when she was 9 months old. We had no training to prepare us for night terrors, attachment, questions about birth history, orphanage life, etc. Looking back, we did SO many things wrong the first few months that we had our daughter. Thankfully, she is doing great and has always been a super resilient kid.

When I founded this agency, I wanted it to be a place where adoptive parents get prepared for the lifelong journey of adoption. I wanted families to complete the home study and education component of the process with answers to the following questions: Is openness best for my child? If I don’t have any information about my child’s birth family, how will I answer her questions? What can I do to facilitate attachment?

What if all of the information that I have about my child’s birth family is negative? How do I help my child have a healthy identity as an adopted child? How do I have an open adoption with the birth family?  A New Beginning Adoption Agency has been open 11 years this month. I am so thrilled with our training now. It is the type of training I dreamed

we would have when I started this agency. Ultimately, it is the children who are benefiting from their adoptive parents receiving training and being prepared before they are even in their family. Prepared adoptive parents are parents able to help their child through the lifelong journey of adoption.