To social work consultant Glory To, there is nothing more rewarding than
finding a child a permanent home.
"I get to know the families," he says. "Watching a family grow tells me
it's worth it."
He recalls one family that he met on a home study shortly after they had
moved in to a new house. "I did the home study, and there they were, just
the two of them in this beautiful new house with a sense of emptiness. They
adopted and suddenly that house became a home," he says.
"Then a couple of years later, the birth mother called our agency. She
was pregnant again and requested the same family that had adopted her other
child. With two children in the home, that house is full of life, noise, toys
and sounds of joy. Looking at how happy that family is is probably the greatest
reward of adoption counseling."
Adoption is a family's story, not just an event. Any of the people
involved in that family may need some help from a counselor with training
in adoption issues. An adoption counselor may also be needed at any time during
that family's story.
A birth mother might need help making the difficult decision to give a
child up for adoption. Parents may need help understanding and coping if their
adopted child is suddenly acting out as a teenager. Is it an adoption issue,
or simply being a teenager? An adult adoptee may experience traumatic feelings
after finally finding a long-lost birth family.
Adoptive families face many of the same issues that blood-related families
do, but they also experience many things that are unique to adoption. For
example, special concerns may come up if the adoption involves a child from
a different race.
"It is important to identify how that parent will honor the child's
difference," says clinical social worker Louise Fleischman. She counsels through
Adoptions Together, a private adoption agency in Maryland.
"Sometimes parents are really blind to this. Proper counseling helps avoid
rejection and trauma down the road. They must have understanding and they
must be prepared to help the child explore his or her different history."
Fleischman and To agree that families who are involved in cross-racial
adoptions have to be stronger than other families.
"If people are not really secure," says To, "they aren't prepared
to face possible prejudice from other people. One thing I get them to do is
imagine a family wedding, with a big family picture. I tell them to imagine
one child in that picture who is not blond-haired and blue-eyed, or whatever,
and tell me how they feel and how the child may feel."
A family that is right for cross-racial adoption will be able to help the
child feel a part of the family anyway. Fleischman says that the adoption
issue is more "in your face" for these families.
"It is something they'll have to examine on a daily basis. They may
find it's not for them. If they can come to that before the adoption,
then we feel we've done them a favor."
Fleischman and To both say adoption counseling forces you to face your
own biases. You have to know where you stand on issues surrounding family
life. Adoption brings up issues about race, culture, religion, class, poverty
and disabilities.
The trend towards open adoption has brought with it many special challenges
for adoption counselors. "If you come from an open adoption, you have to constantly
renegotiate the openness between the birth and adoptive family," says psychologist
Michael Sobol. "How the families dance together will probably change over
time."
Adoption counselors will help birth families and adoptive families maintain
healthy attitudes towards each other through an ongoing relationship. "'Openness'
is a very loaded word," says Fleischman.
"We like to use 'connectedness.' Often, adoptive parents feel
threatened because there are a lot of myths. There is a threat of having a
child's loyalty go to someone else. Also, birth and adoptive families
have to make an effort to understand each other. This may be difficult as
they may be in very different places in life," she says.
"Most adoptive families are stable, white, middle-class families. Many
birth families are in a bad time of their life. There has to be a basic understanding
of each other's circumstances."
Many adoption counselors are social workers who have come to focus on adoption
because they have had a personal experience with adoption. Dianne Mathes,
an adoption therapist, is herself an adoptee.
She says it is important for a counselor to be able to empathize with clients.
She says a counselor has to be able to understand what difference is like,
and what it is like if you cannot see someone's difference.
"One does not have to have a personal adoption experience, but it is important
to understand and learn how to work with the powerlessness that comes from
the experience of being different," says Mathes. "One exercise is to imagine
what it might be like to be different than others around you."
Some counselors find that because adoption touches on so many family issues,
it evolves naturally out of a more general practice. "I started out as a garden-variety
social worker," says Fleischman.
"Adoptive children are over-represented in mental health and social services,
but it is not always treated as an adoption issue. A large number of my caseload
involved foster care and adoption. It was just a progression."
Fleischman warns that like any therapy job, it can be stressful. "There
is a secondary trauma that you may feel if you don't do personal supervision.
You might get sucked into a case. You need a good outside life -- whether
that be sports or religion or whatever."
Like Fleischman, To says he deals with the stress by relaxing in his spare
time. "I play video games and build computers. I watch science fiction. Unlike
adoption counseling, the outcome is predictable. I watch and read only stories
with happy endings."