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| Sunny Ridge Family Center is licensed as a child welfare agency by the Illinois Department of Child and Family Services (#019976), and by the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration, Division of Family and Children, as a child placing agency. |
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| Part II: Areas to Consider Before you decide to adopt, there are several areas for you to consider. The four major areas of consideration that most couples base their decision to apply are:
The first area of consideration relates to criteria established by the birth parents. This applies mainly to our domestic adoption program. Sunny Ridge practices what we call "prescriptive adoption." By that, we mean that birth parents are able to prescribe or identify characteristics and values that they desire in the family with whom they are placing their child. Sunny Ridge will provide them with profiles of three to six couples who have completed the home study process and who closely approximate the birth parents’ criteria. Five of the most often used criteria considered to be important by our birth parents are: degree of openness in pre-placement and post-placement arrangements, interests and hobbies, religious beliefs, age of the parents, and child care plans. With respect to openness, we find that our birth families usually desire to meet the couple they choose before the birth of the baby. The first meeting is usually held at Sunny Ridge and facilitated by a Sunny Ridge counselor, but birth and adoptive families often develop a natural and comfortable relationship that is mutually agreed upon. We are also finding that more birthparents are requesting three or four meetings the first year after placement, as well as the exchange of pictures and letters. As for interests and hobbies, there seems to be a desire on the part of our birth parents for the adoptive parents to enjoy the same type of leisure activities that are enjoyed by the birth parents, or their parents. Birth parents who enjoy the outdoors, for example, will tend to choose adoptive parents who enjoy the outdoors. In regard to religion, the birth parents usually desire that both adoptive parents be of the same religion and that both be active in their church lives. They usually believe that it is best if both adoptive parents were of the same religion that they, the birth parents, also happen to be. They want to know in what faith their child will be raised. Birth parents are usually drawn to couples who have been married for several years and are under 40 years of age. Regarding child care, many birth parents have selected an adoptive couple where one of the parents will be home full-time with the child. If both adoptive parents do elect to be employed, birth parents seem to give preference to a home where one parent is willing to take an extended employment leave, and/or where the infant is cared for by a member of the extended family. Part III: More Areas for Consideration |