Adoption

INFANT ADOPTION

In light of current adoption trends, community needs and state funding setbacks, The Baby Fold is moving its adoption focus away from domestic infants and exclusively toward international, residential, and foster care adoptions.

For 108 years The Baby Fold has strived to provide permanent homes for the most vulnerable children in the agency’s care. In 1902, this was orphaned or abandoned infants. Today, there are many families waiting for domestic infant adoption and the percentage of young or single mothers placing their children for adoption has decreased, both locally and nationally.

“The landscape of adoption in our community has changed and continues to change,” said Dale Strassheim, President and CEO of The Baby Fold. “As we look at our mission and history of proactively providing for the most vulnerable children, we see this as an appropriate response to societal changes.”

The Baby Fold leaders have carefully considered the critical balance between The Baby Fold’s mission, the financial impact of providing a broad range of services, and the changing needs of the children. With limited resources, the agency can do more good for more children by focusing on adoptions of those in residential care, foster care, and international orphanages and away from domestic infant adoptions.

“We acknowledge that this may be very disappointing to families who have come to rely on The Baby Fold for quality domestic infant adoptions,” said Strassheim. “We will work diligently with waiting parents to transfer domestic adoption cases to quality agencies of their choice. In the meantime, it means we can put more emphasis on finding families for children without a waiting list of options.”

Click here for more information >>