A successful adoption begins with thorough preparation. Through our pre-adoption groups and through the home study we equip you to make informed decisions about your options and to anticipate issues that regularly come up for adoptive parents and children.

Information Meetings

We encourage you to attend our Information Meeting for an overview of the adoption experience.

While descriptions of Barker programs are a regular feature, those who attend these meetings most enjoy hearing from new parents and seeing the children who have joined their families. These new parents share the joys and challenges of their adoption journeys. Families who traveled overseas to meet their child describe the trip.

Please see the events calendar for the date and location of the next information meeting or contact us.

Pre-Adoption Training for Domestic and International Programs 

(Please see specific requirements for the pre-adoption training for families adopting an older child through Project Wait No Longer).

A one-day group session of pre-adoption training for those adopting infants and younger children introduces prospective adoptive parents to the immediate questions and lifelong issues that are part of adoption for children, adoptive parents and birth parents. Should I consider an international or a domestic adoption? What are the risks we should be aware of? How do children feel about being adopted?

Group discussions, guest speakers (birth parents, adult adoptees and adoptive parents) and adoption literature can help you expand your understanding of adoption in a setting that encourages reflection. Here's a sampling of what past participants say about the discussion groups:
 

• "The group was a sounding board for me to think through my hopes and fears about parenting and adoption."

• "We were so focused on having a family that we really hadn't thought about the issues that adoption would pose for a child. The group was helpful for that."

• "I really had to think through what adopting a child of a different race might mean for me and for the child."
   
• "By the end of the groups we decided that adoption was not for us. It was sad, but it was good to have it clear."

• "It was helpful for us to talk with other people who know the pain of infertility, and who are facing similar decisions."

• "I liked taking the first step without having to make a commitment."

Please contact us for more information about the pre-adoption groups.