Tips For Your Adoption Profile
As an adoption social worker, part of my job was helping adoptive couples
create a good profile. As this was for adoptions through foster care, a matching committee made up of adoption professionals was
the ones reviewing the profiles. However, many of the principles are the same.
Let me preface this by saying these are just suggestions, if they don't feel
right for you, don't use them!
Profile Picture:
*Color catches the eye. For example, if I was looking through the 800+
profiles on the LDS website, the people in muted and/or earth tones would fade
into the background if I was browsing. A person in bright yellow, or standing
by bright flowers would stand out.
*While a professional picture is not necessary, a professional looking
one is, meaning, try not to use a picture of you standing around a birthday
cake, at the lake, etc. Also I would not
suggest very casual clothes like beach wear, flip flops, etc.
* Don't get lost in your landscape. Crop your picture so that you and your
spouse/family fill in the space.
Intro Sentence:
*Keep it simple and from the heart. Try not to be too over-the-top or
desperate (like Pick Us! Pick Us!). A potential birth parent is going through
indescribable emotions as they review these profiles and a
loving/peaceful/comforting introduction is going to appeal to them much more
than a desperate/overly eager one.
* Only post your blog address if you feel comfortable with hundreds, if not
thousands, of bored people looking at your blog. If a potential birth parent is
interested in you, you can give it to them in private/through email.
Letter to Potential Birth Parents:
*I asked both birth mothers who chose us what appealed to them from our
profiles. Both said that they liked that we didn't talk about God/Heavenly
Father a lot and did not present ourselves as being overbearingly religious.
Because neither was LDS (or even really knew what it was) and a good chunk of
potential birth parents are not religious or have any affiliation with the LDS
church. So while it may be your tendency to bear your testimony through your
letter, know that this will only be appealing to a certain demographic.
*Carefully consider what level of openness (letters, phone calls,
identifying information, visits, etc.) in an adoption you would want and talk
about it in your letter. This is likely the most important information a
potential birth parent will want to know about. Please give this careful
consideration as you only want to promise what you really truly can commit to.
*Use pictures that show what you like to do so that a potential birth
parent knows if you have the lifestyle/hobbies they are looking for in adoptive
parents.
* One of the birth mothers who chose us said we appealed to her because she
was African American and we had posted pictures in our album with our African
American friends. She felt we could give her child connections to her culture.
If you have similar friendships and are open to a transracial adoption, it
would be important for a potential birth parent to see the connections you
could provide to a child.
General:
*Try not to present yourselves as "too" anything.... too perfect
(because no one is), too reserved (could seem indicative of future behavior),
too detailed (save that for communication through email or in person), or just
"too" anything!
* Review, update, and edit your profile every 6 months.
2 comments:
This was awesome, thank you Elizabeth
Hi Elizabeth, that was informative and well written. Thanks for taking your time on this.
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