What types of counseling services are available for birth parents?

Host: What types of counseling services are available for birthparents? Sarah Mejac: Basically, when a birthparent, a birthmother especially, would contact an adoption agency regarding placing a child for adoption. She is immediately paired with the social worker; there is often a particular social worker in an adoption agency that will do what they call birthparent outrage. They will be the ones to take those phone calls and sort of talk to the person and see what's going on with them and if there are anything that they can help them with immediately. I mean, sometimes it's just a matter of saying we re here and we d love for you to come in and talk to us and see what we can do for you as well as tell you about our adoption agency or our program. I think that s just so reassuring to the birthparent or the woman thinking about placing a child because I think you feel alarmed that you have had this unexpected pregnancy that you are not sure what you re going to do about it. You feel like you are off balance, that you need to make the best decision possible for your child and for you, so that when you, maybe, come in just to speak to someone and you realize that there are a lot of good options available to you both, in having someone counsel you, maybe throughout your pregnancy. One of the other thing that often is available and I would wish it was available more often is a support group for birthparents and most birthparents support groups are for people who have placed, but they also should welcome and I know that the Barker Foundation s birthparents support group often has women who are considering making an adoption plan for their child. Come in and learn from other birthmothers, what it feels like to have gone through the process and how it feels to be -- to look at other women who have gone through it and come out what their lives look like. It can be enormously reassuring to know that there are -- obviously there are millions of adopted children in the world, which means there are millions of birthmothers who are striving to live their lives and keep up an ardent place for their child as well.