Draft:American Adoptions

American Adoptions is a national adoption agency based in Overland Park, Kansas. It is a full-service domestic adoption agency that assists birth mothers and adoptive families throughout the adoption process. Its services include infant adoption placement services, social work support, home studies, unplanned pregnancy counseling, and adoption profile creation. It completes hundreds of domestic adoptions annually.

History and background
American Adoptions was founded by Scott Mars and his parents, Ted and Susan Mars, in 1991. When Mars was 10 days old, he was adopted via closed adoption, and his adoption experience led him to start an adoption agency after finishing a psychology degree at the University of Kansas. In 2013, Mars also founded American Surrogacy, a company focused on creating families through surrogacy.

American Adoptions is a licensed adoption agency in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Ohio, and Texas. There are one or more American Adoptions offices in each of these states. The agency focuses on domestic adoption while also providing home studies for foster care and international adoption in several of its licensed states.

The agency is a member of the Metropolitan Adoption Council of Greater Kansas City and the Florida Adoption Council, among other state-specific adoption agency organizations.

With a long history providing adoption services, American Adoptions has been called upon to help shape state laws and influence policies in service of the best interests of children.

Services
American Adoptions provides several types of adoption-related services to its clients, including birth mothers and adoptive families. Its services include:


 * Home studies: A home study is a required step of the adoption process for adoptive families. It comprises background checks, interviews with a licensed social worker, and home safety compliance.
 * Unplanned pregnancy counseling: This is counseling provided to pregnant people to explore what their options are, such as adoption, abortion, and parenting.
 * Adoption profile creation: Adoption profiles are videos or articles about specific adoptive families that an adoption social worker presents to the prospective birth mother when it's time to choose parents for the baby.
 * Locating adoption opportunities: The agency finds adoptive families based on the birth mother's preferences.
 * Financial assistance: American Adoptions coordinates living expenses with adoptive families to cover adoption-related costs for the birth mother according to what is allowed by relevant state laws.

Birth mother program
American Adoptions' birth mother program entails meeting an adoption specialist, creating an adoption plan, choosing an adoptive family, and creating a hospital birth plan. The agency coordinates financial assistance to cover adoption- and pregnancy-related fees for the birth mother according to state laws. All social work services provided to prospective birth mothers are completely free.

Adoptive family program
American Adoptions' adoptive parent program entails meeting an adoption specialist, completing a home study, creating an adoption profile, finding an adoption opportunity, receiving placement of a child, and finalizing the adoption.

Industry scope
There are several common types of adoption, such as:


 * Domestic infant adoption
 * Foster care adoption
 * International adoption
 * Step-parent adoption
 * Adult adoption

American Adoptions focuses on domestic infant adoption. This type of adoption has changed dramatically over the years. For example, closed adoption was once more common, but open adoption has since become the industry standard, as a study among U.S. adoption agencies revealed that 95% of the participating agencies' domestic infant adoptions were open.

Modern domestic adoption gives more control to the prospective birth mother. She is able to choose the family she would like to adopt her baby, determine the amount of contact she would like after placement through open adoption, and receive financial assistance during the process, in accordance with the laws of her state.