Adoptive
Parents - After Adoption
Adoption is changing. Individuals and
families touched by adoption are thinking about their relationships in many new
ways. These new options present unique challenges for each member of the
adoption circle.
MAC offers comprehensive education,
support and counseling services to meet emerging needs of adoptive parents.
Clinical Services
Family Consultations
Open Adoption
Greeting Cards
Clinical Services
Adopted children and their families
sometimes need special help to understand and resolve problems. It's not that
adoption is in itself "a problem"; but it does add another dimension
which needs to be addressed by the counselor or therapist. There have been in
the past, and still are, few counselors or therapists who are not only
excellent clinicians but also understand the impact of adoption. MAC offers
individual, marital and family counseling, individual and group therapy for
children and adolescents as well as birthparent counseling. Most of these
clinical services are covered by insurance. Services are offered at the main
office in Desplaines as well as in Long Grove. For more information, email MAC or call (847) 298-9096.
In the Views section, Nancy Golden,
Clinical Director of the Center, describes how a therapist with expertise in
adoption may be helpful to your family. Click here.
Family Consultations
Forming a family by adoption can be a
daunting task. MAC can help families understand the issues and make good
decisions for themselves along the way -- for deciding how much openness is
right to negotiating contact with a birth family. Later, the task will be in
understand the child's behavior, sorting out what might be related to adoption
questions and what is developmentally typical. Or the family may be in a
closed, traditional adoption with little information about the child's' birth
family. As his questions become more complex, adoptive parents may want to
consider establishing contact with the birth family to obtain more information.
MAC can help adoptive parents think through the implications of the situation
and formulate the plan of action that will be best for their family. For more
information, email MAC or call (847)
298-9096.
Greeting cards help us express our
deepest, most intimate thoughts and feelings. For adoptive parents who are in
touch with the birthparents of their child, there have been no appropriate
cards available.
Midwest Adoption Center has developed a
set of eight that anticipate and meet the needs of adoptive families throughout
the year. The messages reflect the very special connection between these two
families and recognize their shared love for the child. The cards include
Mother's Day greetings, recognition of the child's birthday, holiday wishes and
"thinking of you" and are packaged in a storage envelope complete
with a record form to keep track of when each was sent.
Families in what is called "open
adoption" have few guidelines and no rules that apply to the on-going
relationship with the birth family of their child. MAC's greeting cards are a
thoughtful way to keep in touch--even if it sometimes seems awkward and even
intimidating.
To order Greeting Cards, send check or
money order for $13.00 plus $2.50 shipping and handling to:
Midwest
Adoption Center
3158 South River Road - Suite 120
DesPlaines, Illinois 60018
Phone: (847) 298-9096
Fax: (847) 298-9097
Email: mac@macadopt.org