The adoption process can take time, emotional fortitude, and all too often a significant amount of money. The wonderful part is that when everything comes together, a bond is formed and a family is grown!
Initially, a decision will need to be made on which route to travel on your journey: private adoption (attorneys), an agency adoption, and whether or not to contract with a consulting group that helps families match with agencies/birth mothers all over the United States. Once your decision is made, you will have a better grasp on the expected financial commitment.
When making a plan for adoption, there are a great number of resources for raising the necessary funds. Personal finances, friends and family, crowdfunding, adoption sales and charitable grants/loans, to name a few. It can be a big relief once most, or all, of the money has been raised, especially if a match has been made with a birth family! However, due to the unexpected nature of adoption, changes can occur. In some cases, a “failed” or “disrupted” adoption happens when the birth mother/father decide to parent their child, or another family member of the birth parents step in to assist. There may also be a situation where the baby needs to spend time in NICU, extending your travel plans much longer than anticipated. Either scenario has the potential to far exceed the original budget discussed with attorneys or agencies, putting the adoptive family at risk of losing thousands of dollars and unable to continue their journey.
This is where The Current Initiative steps in.
We make funds available to those families who are late in the adoption process and hit an unexpected financial hardship that would otherwise derail their ability to adopt a child.
As mentioned above, when a failed adoption attempt occurs, families can lose hundreds or thousands of dollars. Legal fees, social/caseworker compensation, agency fees, birth mother expenses (medical and sometimes living assistance) are a few areas of expense that are dispersed throughout the process and cannot be easily recovered, if at all.
When an adoption is halted, it creates a domino effect. Historically, there are more children in need than there are families available. By assisting a family that has completed a current home study and has already been approved by their state, together we are finding a home for one more child that would otherwise have none.
