Don’t Make This Adoption Agency Mistake
90% of hopeful adoptive families make these three mistakes when they are working with adoption agencies. These mistakes can actually prevent you from getting matched. Once we fix these, however, my clients actually go from waiting in line for years, to matching in just a few months. So, what mistakes are often being made?
Not Making an Emotional Connection with Your Profile
This mistake can make you get overlooked instantly. Make sure when you’re creating your profile that you are making an emotional connection. Make it easy to read, easy to view, and to connect with. Share your story and share images. You don’t want it to be too picture heavy or too text heavy. It should be a good balance of the two. The text should be easy to read, and the content should connect with potential expectant families.
The same is going to hold true when someone’s looking at your profile on a website. If it’s just big scrolling text and no pictures to really break it up or bring the text to life, you have a real possibility of someone just getting bored and not wanting to expend the mental energy to get to know you. When you make it too hard to get to know you, potential parents will just move on to the next person.
It's really important that we make sure that our profile is telling the story that is really engaging the reader and ultimately making an emotional connection. Because having a profile that does not make an emotional connection simply will mean that it will take you longer to adopt, my friend. That is the hard truth of it.
Be Cooperative and Kind
Once your profile is optimized, it is time to move into how you can become your agency’s best friend. That really is the second mistake that I see people making is that they’re just not cooperative and kind through their adoption agency. I get it. You are writing them a big check and you expect amazing things as you go through this journey, and to adopt your child at the end of this journey. I totally understand. But for them, you are likely one of a stack of cases they are working with. You want to make sure that you are doing all you can to really put yourself forward in the best light possible. So here are some ideas to help you in this step.
The very first thing is to be kind with your interactions. You want to recognize that you are just part of their day.They have a huge list of people that they are working with, so it’s really important that you are kind and brief when you interact with them.
I’m not saying brief in the sense that you can’t ask questions. Ask all of your questions, but maybe set up some time with them to ask all of those questions at once rather than just calling for an impromptu chat. Impromptu chats really don’t work out well, especially in those larger adoption agencies, because their days are pretty scheduled. You want to make sure that you are being intentional with the time you’re spending with them and allowing them to do the same.
Next is to have empathy. They are humans. They have good days and bad days just like all of us. They’re also dealing with a myriad of emotions from us hopeful adoptive families. Think about their day for just a minute. They could be on a call where they’ve just matched with somebody, and they’re on the way to the hospital. They’re explaining all the ins and outs of how it works and really riding the high. Then they could be talking with someone next who had a disruption and had to give the child back. They’re in the depths of that valley of emotions. Then maybe they’re meeting with you next, and you’re waiting to be matched. You’re a little anxious, so then they are getting that emotion. So if you think about what’s going on in their day and provide a little empathy, you’re just going to have a better connection overall.
When you’re easier to get along with, my friend, then human nature is just to help those people a little bit more. Whatever your expectations, be really clear with the agency on what those expectations are. That is really how you can help create the best relationship with your agency. The two of you should be on the same page as it relates to your expectations.
I always encourage my clients to be really clear about the type of communication style that they want and expect, and to share that with their agency. It’s also important to be really clear with the frequency of that communication. So if you want to hear from them via email once a week, you need to express that and ask if that’s okay. If you expect to get a once a month phone call where you’re given an update on everything, then you need to make sure that’s okay.
Being clear and consistent in your communication with your agency is important. As hard as it is to keep your emotions out of it and be professional, it’s not okay to call someone up and yell at them. You don’t like to be treated that way, so you shouldn’t treat anyone that way. On the converse side, it’s also not okay for you to bottle up all those emotions either. So be really clear with your agency on what your expectations are from a communication standpoint. But be very consistent with that.
Finally, you want to leave every communication with your agency very clear on what your next steps are. This way you are consistently understanding what’s happening next in your journey. So if you’re in the home study phase, and you’re unsure what to do next, clarify that with them. Don’t leave the conversation in confusion. If you walk away and have additional questions, maybe send a follow up email so that they can respond to that at their leisure when they have time in their calendar. But also be very clear on the next time you’re going to connect and what each party is going to do beforehand.
Don’t Put All Your Eggs in the Adoption Agency Basket
Now this next mistake is a big one. It is putting all of your eggs in the adoption agency basket, if you will, by not sharing your profile yourself. Now I know in some states, it may not be legal to share your adoption profile yourself. So you always want to make sure that you understand the law. Ask your adoption agency if you have any questions. If you're not working with an adoption agency, ask an attorney or head on over to my website. I've got some amazing resources there that walk you through state law, step by step. Now I'm not an adoption attorney by any means. So you should always take that information, and maybe do additional research if you find it a little bit gray.
But when you are in a state where you can share your adoption profile yourself, you need to be doing so even if you're working with an adoption agency. As a matter of fact, I had some clients that came to me recently that had been working with a small agency, and they had been waiting for years and they were paying those renewal fees every year, but actually not seeing any adoption opportunities. My friend, that is the biggest red flag you can ever imagine. If you are not seeing adoption opportunities over the course of a year, that means your agency simply isn't getting enough opportunities into their agency in total and that's a problem.
But if you are sharing your adoption profile yourself, that also doesn't give your agency the ability to let off the gas in sharing your profile. Instead you want both of you to go pedal to the metal on sharing your profile. To make an emotional connection with expectant families, it is really important that you're sharing your profile. The fact of the matter is, if you are not sharing a high quality profile with expectant families, you'll never match. The more times you share your profile, the better off you are.
Now, you may be wondering, what does that mean? How do I share my profile? If you’re working with an agency, this can come about in a couple of different ways. You could simply share your agency's profile from their website, or maybe a profile book with people. But you want to make sure it’s really fit for the purpose. If you’re going to share this profile with people, you want to make it as easy as possible. A profile book may not be the best option. Maybe you want to share a business card, instead, which sends them to more information. You can make business cards yourself on half a dozen websites and print them and pass them out.
Be mindful of where you’re sending people to get to know you. Are you going to have them text or call you? Are you using your real phone number or getting an alternate phone number specific to your adoption? Are you sending them to a website? If so, are you sending them to your agency’s website where they could potentially see other couples wanting to adopt? Or are you going to send them to a standalone website to get to know you first?
Listen, my friend, there are a million different options on the ways that you can share your profile. I have matched over 1,000 families now. So I know the ways that work best. What’s really important for you to know here, is that if you are simply relying on your agency to share your profile, it could take you longer to match. If you’re okay with that, then make peace and move on to the next thing. But if you’re not okay with that, you want to spend some dedicated time really focusing on how you can share your profile in the easiest way possible.
Then once you share your profile and you get someone to reach out to you, then what? What do you do next? Then you need to reach back out to your agency and let them know that you have someone that’s considering placing their child for adoption and ask them to speak to them to determine whether they might be a good fit.
If you want to learn more about how you can share your adoption profile, and potentially match when you're also working with an agency, be sure and check out this episode over on the My Adoption Coach YouTube channel.
