You can conduct and adoption education meeting yourself. I’m not talking about a meeting where your profile all the issues that you can deal with in adopting a foster child or special needs child, but rather a meeting that will profile the “types” of children that are available, how to get started, what some of the requirements are, etc.

There are many people who are interested in foster care or foster care adoption, but don’t have any idea how to get started, or even where to call to get information or an application. They don’t know what a home study is or what it entails. The information is not easily found in all areas.

You can conduct a meeting by finding a meeting space and talking about how to get started. It’s that simple. If you’ve already gone through a foster care adoption, you have a great deal of the information already. If you have not, you can find the information and share it with other potential adoptive parents. You an also contact a post adoption services group or an adoption support group to help you with the meeting content or to help you co-host the meeting.

The first, and possibly the most important part, is to find a place to host the meeting. You can check with your local library, community center, YMCA, social services agency, or other areas that work with kids.

Set an agenda of the things you want to discuss. If you have already adopted, think of the questions that you had when you first started. If you have not adopted, you know the questions you have, and other families will share the same questions.

Have resources available for potential parents. Some of the most important information would be:

• Who do I contact to get started?



• How much will does this cost?



• Do I have to take any classes?



• How do I get a home study done?
  

You don’t have to have exact answers to their questions, but instead, directing them to the people who can answer them.

The book, The Adoption.com Guide to Adopting From Foster Care can give you some of the questions that parents may want answered, as well as providing you with contact information for your state special needs adoption offices. (Besides the author of the book is really, really smart :) )

Simply getting the word out about waiting children will help everyone.

Photo credit