| Adoption Resources | |
My wife is adopted. Since I have never known someone who was adopted prior to her, I have found her experiences interesting. She knew she was adopted from a very young age; since she has always felt a part of her adoptive family, she has no desire to meet her birth mother.
However, there are many adopted children who need help coping with their situation, and many adoptees (or potential ones) who need help. In the Columbus area, here are two groups that can provide assistance with adoption-related needs:
Charting the Course
The Charting the Course Web site says the organization's purpose is "to provide education and support for adoptive families through all phases of the child's growing years with the understanding that adoption is a life-long process. Not so long ago, it was believed that the child should be raised as if born to the adoptive parents. Now we are aware...that a child who is not encouraged to talk of his feelings, thoughts, and questions, may develop misconceptions and suffer reduced self-esteem and develop trust issues."
Charting the Course helps fill the need adoptive families have for a special kind of education and ongoing support.
Your guide spoke with Barb VanSlyck at Charting the Course. She shared the following information about her work:
- VanSlyck joined them in 1992 after she adopted an 11-year-old who had endured many losses and much trauma. She added courses for parents with children aged 6 to 10, a course for parents of toddlers, an intensive 15-hour seminar for violence prevention, and support groups for teens and parents. VanSlyck also sends out a newsletter 6 times a year.
Charting the Course began in 1986 as the first post-adoptive services organization in Ohio and one of only a few in the United States. Today there are only a handful of counties in Ohio that provide services for adoptive families; VanSlyck's clients come from communities throughout central, west central, and southern Ohio.
Most of the youth who seek assistance from Charting the Course have questions about why their birth families did not parent them. About eighty percent of women search for their birth families; only twenty percent of men do so. Most adoptees are not interested in a close relationship with birth parents, but want medical history and other information. Many of the children VanSlyck works with know their birth families as they were removed by the courts due to lack of care. Other children are adopted internationally and have almost no chance of finding their birth family.
VanSlyck says "this work is dear to me as I get to work with wonderful people who are raising children that require special coping and parenting tools. The families want to help their children and eagerly use all of the assistance we have to offer." For more information about their post adoptive services, visit www.chartingthecourse.com or contact them at (614) 459-2833.
VanSlyck has recently written a book titled "Wasn't Love Supposed to be Enough?" that gives advice about using and creating adoption support groups, along with in-depth biographies of adoptive families that wanted to share their stories to help others find solutions to their family problems.
Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption
As you may know, Wendy's Restaurant founder Dave Thomas was adopted. His Foundation for Adoption supports adoption-related groups around the country. You can find great adoption advice--from "Why People Adopt Children" to "Adopting a Child With Special Needs" to an adoption glossary--at the Wendy' s Web site. For more about Dave, click here.
For more information about adoption, visit About Adoption at adoption.about.com.
