Is Milestones & Transitions an Adoption Agency?  If not, why would M & T focus on Adoption Awareness Month?

Milestones & Transitions [www.milestonesandtransitions] is a social work service for People facing Change and its Challenges providing services such as Assessment, Insight, Recommendations & Support.

All three of the founding partners, Betty Ann Streeter, Patricia Fenton and Michaele-Sue Goldblatt have spent many years working in Adoption Services, working with and serving those touched by adoption and who became part of the Adoption Network of families.   We have worked with birth parents and their families, adoptive applicants who became parents and their families and with adopted children and teens and adults.  We have all worked with families and children in International Adoption.  We have all worked with groups of adoptive families.

We have seen and welcomed many changes in adoption.  We have worked with single adoptive parents and same sex adoptive couples.  We all began our Child Welfare and Adoption work when the parties [parents] did not know each other and adoptions were generally closed, meaning there was no contact between the birth and adoptive parents. We have seen far more inclusion of the extended families of birth parents and we were all part of ushering in the era of far more openness and full inclusion of birth parents in reading about, meeting and choosing those people who would have the privilege of raising and adopting their children. We have had the privilege of seeing birth and adoptive families maintain some degree of contact over the years, enhancing, we believe the experience of the child him or herself as there were ‘no more secrets’ in that child’s life.  We know how fortunate we have been to  be included by birth and adoptive families in some of the most intimate moments of their lives.

I think it is fair to say that for each of us, our commitment to children and their families is almost ‘built into’ our DNA. 

Pat and Betty Ann continue to work with birth parents, adoptive applicants, children and agencies in terms of Adoption Homestudies and Placement Plans for Children and continue working with those families formed by adoption once a child has been placed.  Michaele-Sue’s more recent focus has been on Reunion between adopted adults and their families of origin.

Adoption remains an important aspect of our work and service to families at Milestones & Transitions.  We have tried, during November 2018, to draw attention, through our Blog at our website and through our FaceBook page [https://www.facebook.com/milestonesandtransitions/?epa=SEARCH_BOX] to some important aspects of Adoption.  

We have enjoyed providing these posts and our own first forays into FaceBook Live [ each Wednesday in November…you can view these on our FB page] and we hope they have had meaning for you, too.  Watch for one more article tomorrow, November 30, 2018

By:  Michaele-Sue Goldblatt, MSW,RSW

        Milestones & Transitions