The Nugget Newspaper - News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon

The Boys and Girls Aid Society of Oregon has embarked upon a "Family is Forever" campaign with the goal of educating families about adoption and making adoption a more visible and viable option in the State of Oregon.

A free family workshop to create awareness and encourage people to consider adoption will be held at the Sisters Public Library at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, November 8. A second session will be held at the Becky Johnson Community Center in Redmond at 6 p.m. on Thursday, November 9.

The workshops will cover three topics: a comparison of what adoption was in the past in Oregon to what it has become today; guidelines for evaluating a family's readiness to adopt; and information about the actual processes of adoption. The information includes the costs of adoption, how a family goes about adopting, how long adoption takes, what is involved in the paper work, what the babies look like and what tax credits are available to adoptive parents, as well as many other issues of concern.

Paula Reents and Susan Straub, adoptive clinicians for the Boys and Girls Aid Society of Oregon, will conduct the workshops. Reents specializes in providing adoption education and in working with families during the adoptive process, whereas Straub works with birth mothers.

Reents and Straub will also provide workshops for health care professionals throughout Central Oregon. The goal is to provide health care professionals with the necessary background to suggest adoption as an available option when working with pregnant women. The workshops will include information about current adoption law in the State of Oregon and training in the skills to support women as they make their choices. Emphasis will be on the ability to be flexible when birth mothers change their minds during the process. The first workshop will be at Pioneer Memorial Hospital in Prineville on October 31.

A major goal of the "Family is Forever" campaign is to expand the services of the Boys and Girls Aid Society of Oregon into communities of less than 30,000 that the society considers presently under served.

Grants from the Ford Family Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Dave Thomas Foundation, the Meyer Memorial Trust, as well as the John and Linda Shelk Foundation of Prineville have been received to promote the campaign and to establish an endowment for birth mothers to insure that permanent funds are available to these women when they come to the Boys and Girls Aid Society of Oregon for services.

The Boys and Girls Aid Society offers three different adoption services. The agency organizes infant adoption with willing birth mothers and able adoptive families. The society arranges adoptions for special needs infants with families that are willing and able to adopt infants with health problems and who are at high risk. The organization also works with the Special Needs Adoption Coalition to place Oregon's Waiting Children who are in foster care.

Reents said, "Our agency is the lead agency for the coalition. We provide training to families who want to adopt those older children who are Oregon's Waiting Children."

For more information go to http://www.nwae.org/wait-or.html.

In addition to working with families that are considering adopting a child, the Boys and Girls Aid Society of Oregon provides services to birth mothers. Reents explained that any birth mother who is contemplating releasing her child for adoption may come to the society for non-judgmental, open-ended help. The agency works with birth mothers who are as young as 12 or 13 to those who are over 40.

Reents said, "We would help her through the process of her decision making. It would be confidential and at no cost."

Any birth mother in need of assistance may call locally 541-749-4327 or toll free 1-877-932-2734.

The Boys and Girls Aid Society of Oregon assists families in many unique ways. In one instance the society helped a grandfather who took over the care of an infant immediately after birth when the birth mother was unable. The grandfather raised the child until he was 15. Through the years, the grandfather attempted to adopt the child without success. When the boy was 16, the grandfather turned to the society, and a successful adoption resulted.

In another case several years ago, a teen gave birth at home while she was alone. No one in the girl's family knew she was pregnant. The services of the agency were requested, and an open adoption was arranged. The birth mother today is still able to see the child on an annual basis.

The Boys and Girls Aid Society of Oregon has been in the adoption business for over 120 years and during that time has served more than 17,000 families. For more information visit http://www.boysandgirlsaid.org.