Placing children in loving and safe forever families while supporting all members of the adoption triad is not easy. It is reliant on the compassionate dedication of social workers and adoption counselors.
The role of a social worker in adoption isn’t just based on one thing. They ensure prospective adoptive families are fit to take care of a child through steps like the home study. It also involves facilitating meetings/communication between expecting parents and prospective parents that will ensure the best match between child and adoptive family.
They also work to support the tangible, emotional, mental, and physical needs of everyone involved in the adoption triad. This happens in the beginning of the process in making sure expecting parents understand all of their options. This includes options that are not adoption. It continues all the way through the end of the process, helping adoptive families maintain healthy boundaries in open adoption. It even goes beyond placement, supporting adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive parents to help them live their most fulfilled lives. This is only a small, basic taste of what social workers do to provide support for those affected by adoption.
Many of the birth parents and adoptive parents praise the support of their case workers and 
counselors. One of our social workers, Ashley K., gave a look inside her experience with adoption social work at AFTH.
Q. What made you want to get involved in adoption social work?
A. I never expected to find myself doing adoption social work – all through undergrad and grad school I expected to work with domestic violence survivors or other vulnerable populations, mainly women and children. When I left my first job as a foster care caseworker, I saw the job listing for adoption social worker with AFTH and decided to apply. Little did I know that I would be sealing my fate and finding my dream job! Now, I can’t imagine myself doing any other work. It ends up that I get to work with vulnerable populations as well as women and children, just in a different way than I expected.
Q. How is working for AFTH different from other positions you’ve had in social work?
A. I get to see women being empowered to make the best decision for themselves and their babies, which is such a beautiful thing. I also get to see so many happy endings – couples becoming parents and women achieving their goals. Open adoption allows both prospective adoptive families and birth families to realize their dreams, even if it is in a different way than they expected. In my previous jobs, I never got to see so much hope.
Q. What is the best part of adoption social work?
A. Empowering women to consider all of their options and make the best decision for themselves and their babies is probably the best part of my job. At the same time, it is also the hardest part, because these women are making a life-altering, devastating decision in an effort to provide a better life for their child. I rest in the fact that the women we work with are fully aware of all of their options, and are able to consider all of their options before making their decision.
I also love working with prospective adoptive families. At AFTH, the same social worker sees a prospective adoptive family all the way through the process, from the initial meeting to post-placement visits with their new baby, and everything in between. This allows a social worker to build relationships with prospective adoptive families, which is a really nice aspect of the job. Working with adoptive families can also be difficult, especially when they have been waiting for a long time for a placement, or when they experience a disappointment or disruption. When those situations occur, though, I’m able to use the relationship I’ve built with that family through the process to help see them through the difficulty.
Q. What do you think makes AFTH a great place for social workers as well as for clients?
A. AFTH is all about relationships – we build strong relationships with our clients to help them through the adoption process, which helps everyone feel connected.
As noted by Ashley, social work in adoption can be very rewarding but also has difficulties. Check out this piece on earnmydegree.com. It explores the hurdles of entry level Children and Family Social Work through the testimonials of three AFTH social workers/counselors.
Despite the hurdles, a positive outlook and a healthy balance between work and life can help overcome those difficulties. These are some of our favorite quotes about social work!
