Gotta love it
Up late obsessing again and ran across this on an agency ratings page. I’m not sure if it was a worker or the owner of the agency that posted it but I found a couple of things alarming. It can be found in its entirety here
http://www.adoptionagencyratings.com/adoption-advantage.htm#comment-869
So here are the things that made me want to scream
We are always very upfront with clients when they sign up with us and explain that birth mothers do have a right to change their mind about an adoption. Everyone on our staff works very hard to make these placments go through, but sometimes there is just nothing we can do.
Ummmm you shouldn’t be doing anything. If an expectant mother changes her mind you should just say goodbye and move on. You should not be working “very hard to make placements go through” when a mother decides to parent. You should leave her the hell alone!
The caseworker in this case put in countless hours with this birth mother and even went to her house (in a terribly dangerous part of TN) at night and banged on her door trying to get the birth mother to face her. She also left countless messages on her phone attempting to counsel with her. Molly is one of our finest caseworkers and I feel she did everything possible to make this placement work for you.
OMG! So basically your worker harassed this woman. She was banging on her door at night and leave tons of messages on her phone to try to make this adoption work for the APS. That is just great. Very ethical. Is this how you work very hard for all of your clients? How many mothers do you treat this way? Your worker should have been arrested for harassment.
Adoption Advantage has been very successful in placing children in the state of Arkansas and many small agencies have stopped their domestic program because they cannot recruit the number of birth mothers that we do. We spend a lot of advertising dollars to recruit these birthmothers that other agencies and attorneys are not willing to spend.
Recruit? How exactly do you recruit birthmothers? And what kind of advertising are you spending all that money on? I am willing to bet you put out some of those sickeningly coercive “loving option” posters. Maybe one problem you are having with these birthmothers changing their minds is that they aren’t birthmothers. They are expectant mothers. They are the only mother to the child they are carrying. They have not signed TPR papers so they are just mothers. Maybe you should show them some respect and stop using the coercive practice of calling them birthmothers before they possibly could be.
So to sum it up…. you disgust me. Your worker should have been arrested and never be in a position to “work very hard” against another mother that decides to parent. Women who are considering adoption are not birthmothers! You should and probably do know that. You ahev a very very long way to go to become an ethical agancy. Maybe you should save all that advertising money and spend it on some ethics classes for you and your staff.
Aborted Mother 
reunionwritings said,
April 5, 2008 at 1:31 am
They disgust me too. When is this type of behavious going to be illegal? It’s not allowed in Australia (anymore).
angelle2 said,
April 7, 2008 at 1:48 am
Despicable behaviour! Unfortunatley the mother is probably poor and scared. An attorney should sue the agency on her behalf. I am sure the agency has deep pockets and should pay her for their harrassment. The phone records alone would prove this not to mentions the bravado of the agency in citing this case on their site. IMO.