Being an adoption specialist can be incredibly rewarding and exciting. This position offers the benefits of knowing you were integral in offering a child a "forever home" and you have helped complete a "forever family."
There are many varieties of Adoption Specialists. Some specialists provide case management services to children and families, provide referrals and adoption readiness trainings, and complete home studies for prospective adoptive parents. Still others provide search services for those individuals involved in the Adoption TRIAD (the birth parents, the adoptee and the adoptive parents), and provide counseling services to those who are considering the choice of adoption.
The secret to becoming an adoption specialist is understanding what adoption means. This position requires a respect for the grief that encompasses adoption and the loss that those who are going through the process of adoption experience. Adoption specialists must allow for their adoptees to experience all manifestations of their emotions, and must assist forever families in understanding, accepting, and dealing with these feelings. In How to Break In as an Adoption Specialist, you will meet some adoption specialists and hear from them why they entered the field and what was required of them to do so. And you will receive your own Game Plan for entering the profession.