State society supports local adoption

Black Butte resident Paula Reents has found a way to pursue her interest in helping children through The Boys and Girls Aid Society of Oregon.

The organization has been in existence since the days of the Oregon Trail. Established in 1885, the organization looked for suitable homes for orphaned children.

While the agency has widened its scope of services, offering programs such as crisis intervention and pregnancy prevention, it still functions mainly as a child welfare agency.

Reents has been working with The Boys and Girls Aid Society since 1996. Her primary responsibility is to locate adoptive families for children needing placement.

Reents, who has a background in drug prevention and counseling, has always been interested in children's issues.

"I chose to work for the Aid Society because of the respect I saw given to their clients," said Reents. "Helping children is the centerpiece of the agency. What I do isn't just about adoption, it's about finding what is best for the child."

The Boys and Girls Aid Society emphasizes open adoption, meaning that the birth mother chooses and meets the adoptive family. Some form of contact usually takes place after the adoption occurs.

"The spectrum and culture of adoption has changed since this Society was founded," explained Reents. "The process was once cloaked in secrecy, but openness is deemed a more healthy route today. We work with both the birth mother and the adoptive family to find the degree of openness that works for them."

According to Reents, openness seems to allow a sense of completion for adoptees.

"I've asked adopted people who don't know their birth parents how they feel about that," she said. "They will usually reply that they've had great experiences with their adoptive families, but always felt that something was missing from their lives. Why was I given up for adoption? Who are my parents? In open adoption, those questions are answered early on."

Susan Straub is Reents' partner in the process. While Reents works primarily to locate adoptive families, Straub focuses on helping the birth mothers to make wise choices.

"I've been working with the agency since '95," said Straub. "I have a background in teaching and childbirth education, so it was natural for me to work with the young mothers."

Services Straub offers the birth mothers include all-options pregnancy counseling, information and unconditional support for women facing a crisis pregnancy.

"Single parenting is more acceptable now and there is a lot of peer pressure today for girls to keep their babies," said Straub.

"Having a baby is a novelty, plus the girls are dealing with the myth that giving up their baby for adoption is taking the easy way out. In reality, in many cases it is the loving and courageous thing to do."

"We used to do around 100 adoptions a year," agreed Reents. "That number has dropped sharply."

The cost of a typical adoption through The Society is 20 percent of the adoptive family's gross income.

While Reents works mostly with infants, The Society also find homes for older and special needs children.

"One of the things I am most proud of is placing Down syndrome and other disabled children," said Reents.

"Hard placements are one of our strengths -- we've actually inherited babies from other agencies who couldn't find homes for them."

For more information about open adoption, call Paula Reents at 595-2245 or Susan Straub at 480-2490 (cell).