Adoption

CRISIS PREGNANCY/ADOPTION PROGRAMS
The Catholic Church has been active in the delivery of social services to children in Florida for many years dating back to the opening of St. Mary’s Home in Jacksonville in 1886.  As licensed child-placing agencies, Catholic Charities in Florida has been a leader in the field since the first Florida office opened in Jacksonville in 1943.

Catholic Charities has a rich heritage of sensitive professional counseling and casework.  Thousands of clients of all races and religions have been served well with care and love.  This rich heritage of skilled delivery of services to those in an unplanned pregnancy or who are seeking to adopt a child continues in the Diocese of Orlando area at the offices of Catholic Charities.

Any unplanned pregnancy is a crisis.  Our hope is to turn that crisis into a positive experience through private, confidential counseling.  The counseling is directed not only to the pregnant mother but also includes the father of the child as available. The counselors are all trained professionals experienced with helping those facing a crisis pregnancy.  We provide a caring judgment-free atmosphere that is totally confidential at no fee to the birth parents.  The birth parents are provided help to explore the options of single parenting, marriage, and adoption.  The focal point is to facilitate an informed decision that is right for the birth parents and the child.  If a decision is made to place the child for adoption, Catholic Charities provides adoption services as a licensed child placing agency.

The focal point of the adoption program is to find parents for needy children.  Building a family through adoption is a complex socio-legal process.  Process is the key term.  It involves not only the well being of the child but the well being of a host of other persons including the adoptive parents, other siblings, birth parents, and birth grandparents.  Adoption counselors provide home study services to parents seeking to adopt a child.  The home study services include not only those mandated by state law but also those services required for competent adoption case work including education salient to parenting an adopted child.  Families need to be educated and emotionally prepared for the unique tasks of adoptive parenting.

Maternity programs and pregnancy/adoption counseling programs require adjunct services such as assistance in finding medical care, housing, and schooling.  Most adoption practitioners now recognize the natural birth bond between the adoptee and the birth parents especially the birth mother.  This has led to the practice of a more open adoption where the birth parents and adoptive parents have contact and at times exchange identifying information. Catholic Charities welcomes birth parents’ involvement in choosing the family for their baby.

Catholic Charities has always considered post adoption assistance to be an integral part of the delivery of services to all members of the adoption triad.  These services have included the careful preservation and maintenance of records and when necessary, facilitating the exchange of non-identifying information between the adoptive family and the birth families. Adoptees and birth parents often seek contact with one another once the adoptee is of age.   Catholic Charities offers search/reunion services.

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