Adoption & Counseling Services for Families, Inc.is a small adoption agency that provides many services that are needed by adoptive and birth families. The agency is licensed as a Child Placing Agency in the states of Kansas and Missouri. Licensing of the agency is often required in interstate or international adoptions. Nancy Simons Bean, M.S.W. is the Director and primary service provider of the agency.
Adoption & Counseling Services provides services for those involved in domestic adoption. We help to facilitate adoptive placements, to counsel members of the adoption triad and to prepare necessary social assessment documents that are required in adoptions. We do not "place" children, as agencies are often traditionally thought to do. When the opportunity arises, we are glad to help to connect appropriate adoptive and birth families to one another. Our services involve us in independent or private adoptions, as children are not relinquished into our care; they are placed directly into the custody of the adopting parents. An attorney of your choice aids in making legal arrangements for the adoption.
Adoption & Counseling Services views adoption as a healthy option for families, when it is the free and voluntary mutual choice of the birth parents and adoptive parents. Our experience has led us to feel very positively about direct connections between adoptive and birth families. We believe that knowing is healthier than wondering and reality is healthier than fantasy in adoption. We have seen families grow stronger, more assured and healthier under these open adoption conditions. It is our hope to be able to help our clients to make family planning decisions by facilitating healthy relationships between birth and adoptive families. In this way, we hope to help assure the healthy growth and development of the children of adoption.
Adoption & Counseling Services provides services for those involved in international adoption. We complete the adoptive home study that is required by Immigration & Naturalization, the facilitating adoption agency and the country from which the adoption is being done. Education and support regarding international adoption, which often involves a difference in culture and perhaps special emotional or developmental needs in the child and family, is also a part of the home study process.
We offer education and support about adoption to our clients. We feel that education and adoption is very important to potential adoptive parents and to those experiencing an unplanned pregnancy. Knowing what to expect and having guidance in the process of planning an adoption is very important in having a smooth adoption. It can also facilitate the development of a comfortable, trusting relationship in domestic adoption. In an international adoption educational preparation can definitely help an adoptive family and their child to adjust to the changes in their lives. We encourage our clients to take advantage of the many support groups and educational opportunities that are available in the greater Kansas City area.