Parenting Pointers: Adoption Consultants

I had a chance to interview Nicole Witt, Executive Director of The Adoption Consultancy, TODAY Contributor, and host of ‘Adopting! The Podcast,’ about the importance of an adoption consultant in the adoption process.

Adoption can be a long, tedious and difficult process so it makes a major difference when you have help along the way. Because it is often overwhelming for pre-adoptive parents to walk this road alone, adoption consultants are the perfect professionals to take the lead and see them through to the finish line of adoption.

Adoption consultants are to families what wedding planners are to a couple about to get married. They help plan, prepare, navigate and educate people through the process of adoption helping to ensure they make it through the process successfully.

• What role does an adoption consultant fill for adoptive families? 

An adoption consultant is similar to a ‘wedding planner’ for adoption. An adoption consultant is neither a child-placing entity nor a facilitator. Rather, we basically hold the family’s hand throughout the process serving as an information provider, an unbiased resource and an advocate solely for them.

• What benefits does an adoption consultant provide for families?

Adoption consultants work exclusively with and for pre-adoptive parents helping them to adopt safely and quickly and to do so with minimum stress. I do this by teaching them how to take control of the process and to knowledgeably implement a customized adoption plan that I create for them. This includes helping them with developing an outstanding personal profile that tends to get selected by expectant mothers quickly. This also includes development of a customized plan including a variety of agencies and attorneys that are highly reputable, who often place babies quickly, work in states in which the laws are protective of the rights of the adoptive parents, and charge low or no upfront fees. With this plan in action, our clients typically adopt within 3 to 12 months – on average, in about 6 months. We do a lot of education so that our clients begin the process confident that they know what to expect and how to prepare. We also do an informal risk assessment on every opportunity that arises to keep them out of a high-risk match.

• Why can it be important for a family to consider an adoption consultant?

A consultant can save adoptive parents time, money and stress so that they can focus on their future child and on the joy of adoption. Just as no one would ever go through infertility treatments without the support of a medical team, there’s too much at risk in adoption for a family to go it alone.