As a potential adoptive parent, you can use an adoption agency or conduct independent adoption when adopting a child.
Some people prefer independent adoptions because there will be no need to hire an adoption agency. But, hiring an adoption agency makes the adoption process much easier than going about it independently.
Here are three reasons to hire an adoption agency instead of trying independent adoption.
1. Avoid Breaking the Law
Several states in the US have made it illegal to adopt a child independently to avoid fraudulent adoptions. Some states in the US have made it mandatory for all adoption cases to go through adoption agencies. If you try adopting a child independently in such a state, you will break the law. Hence, it is best to hire an adoption agency to avoid breaking the law.
2. Avoid Fraudulent Adoptions
Even if your state allows independent adoptions, you still need to be careful of fraud.
An example of a fraudulent adoption is as follows:
During independent adoptions, some biological parents ask for money in exchange for the adoption rights of their child. But some unscrupulous individuals kidnap children and forge their birth certificates. They then pretend to be a child's biological parents to receive money from the adoptive parents.
Such individuals often get away with it because independent adoptions don't have rigorous vetting procedures. Thus, adopting a kidnapped child via an independent adoption is entirely possible.
Adoption agencies conduct thorough background checks on both parties to prevent fraud. An adoptive agency performs the background checks using:
Hence, hiring an adoption agency helps protect biological and adoptive parents against fraud.
3. Avoid Unnecessary Matching Expenses
Matching refers to introducing adoptive parents to biological parents and vice versa.
Adoption agencies keep a database of prospective adoptive parents and biological parents who want to give up their child's custody. Hence, it is easy for an adoption agency to match both parties via the information on their database. For example, they can match adoptive parents with a child who fits a particular description of their choosing.
But if you opt for independent adoptions, you don't have access to such databases. Thus, you will have to spend a considerable fortune to find parents willing to give up custody of their child. Furthermore, finding the child (age, sex, race, etc.) you want to adopt will not be easy.
Hence, hiring an adoption agency can help you avoid unnecessary expenses when looking for a child to adopt.
To learn more, speak to an adoption agency near you, such as Adoption Angels.
Share25 July 2022
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