24/7 CRISIS SUPPORT:
Pregnancy ONLY
Hotline: 1-888-731-6601
PWNL After Hours Crisis Hotline: 1-888-955-3339
24/7 CRISIS SUPPORT:
Pregnancy ONLY
Hotline: 1-888-731-6601
PWNL After Hours Crisis Hotline: 1-888-955-3339
One of The Barker Adoption Foundation’s hallmarks is its commitment to post-adoption services. Our services do not end when a child is placed with a family, for we recognize that adoption is a lifelong journey, with normal developmental challenges and tasks.
An increasing body of literature supports the idea that post-adoption supports and services serve to strengthen families created through adoption. Barker is committed to providing these supports and education to all members of the adoption circle: adopted persons, birth parents, and adoptive parents.
Barker’s Family and Post-Adoption Services Department provides an array of services, including the following:
Barker’s post-adoption services are available to all touched by adoption. You are welcome to use Barker’s counseling services and groups and to participate in any of the workshops and educational programs offered through Barker regardless of whether your adoption experience was with Barker or another agency.
Below you can find information about specific services, fees, and educational opportunities available to you or a loved one. Please also check Barker’s Event Calendar for the latest updates.
Also, if you are connected with Barker but you don’t think we have your latest information and/or you’d like to receive updates about relevant events, groups, and workshops, please contact the Family and Post-Adoption Services Department at 301-664-9664 or by filling out the form to the right of the screen.
The Barker Adoption Foundation is committed to providing lifelong services to birth parents and to other members of the adoption circle. Barker offers a free cunseling group each month for birth parents whether or not they have placed a child with a Barker adoptive family. This year, the Birth Parent Support Group will be held both in-person and virtually. Check our events calendar here to learn more information and register for our next support group. Barker has provided extensive support and counseling to over 30,000 birth parents since 1945 and offers assistance and counseling long after the actual placement of a child for adoption.
During the first year(s) after placement, it is normal for many birth parents to experience feelings of grief and loss. Barker’s birth parent counselors continue to provide support and counseling during this time. In later years, experienced counselors in Barker’s Family and Post-Adoption Services Department are available to provide counseling on a range of issues. These include processing feelings about the adoption, navigating relationships (if in open or semi-open adoption) with the adoptive parents or child, explaining the adoption to any other children, and searching or reconnecting with birth children.
For over 25 years, Barker has facilitated a monthly discussion group for birth mothers and birth fathers. The group is open to anyone who ever placed a child for adoption, whether through Barker or another agency. The group provides a supportive, safe, and welcoming place where birth parents can talk about their experiences and explore their feelings and thoughts with others who have faced similar issues. The group is facilitated by a Barker social worker and has incorporated a hybrid schedule for 2024.
View Barker’s Events Calendar for more information and to register for our next birth parent discussion group.
For birth parents in semi-open adoptions (who share update letters and photographs on a non-identifying basis), Barker serves as the intermediary with the adoptive family by forwarding letters, updates, and requests for information.
Barker also can support those involved in open adoptions, arrangements that an increasing number of birth and adoptive parents are choosing. As in all relationships, complicated, unexpected, or challenging issues sometimes arise, and birth or adoptive parents may feel the need to seek professional guidance. Barker can help them to navigate these unique relationships to maximize the benefits of open adoption for all members of the adoption circle.
Birth parents who have placed children through Barker may initiate the process of searching for the children they placed if those children are now of adult age (18 for adoptions finalized in Washington, D.C. and Virginia, and 21 for adoptions finalized in Maryland.)
Please contact Barker’s Family and Post-Adoption Services Department at 301-664-9664 or by email at postadoptteam@barkeradoptionfoundation.org for more information.
Barker strongly encourages any birth parent who has placed a child through the agency to keep in touch and make sure Barker has current and updated contact information. This information will remain strictly confidential and will not be released without written permission. Having up-to-date information is helpful in the event that we need to contact you.
You may share updated contact information by email at postadoptteam@barkeradoptionfoundation.org.
Barker’s highly regarded annual adoption and foster care conference was held in the Rockville, MD this year and offered the opportunity to hear from some of the nation’s leading adoption experts and from all members of the adoption circle about their experiences navigating the adoption journey. Birth parents frequently help plan our conference, speak on panels, and shine a spotlight on birth parent issues. Over the past several decades, birth parents have found Barker’s conference to be a highly beneficial source of information and support.
The Barker Adoption Foundation is committed to providing lifelong support to adoptive parents. Our services include offering consultation and assistance as adoptive parents guide their children through early childhood, grade school, adolescence, and beyond.
This group is open to Barker and non-Barker adoptive families. The groups are facilitated by a Barker social worker, and the children under 6 are welcome! Always well received by families who attend them, the groups have been instrumental in helping many adoptive families form long-term friendships with other attendees.
Please check the Barker Events Calendar for updated listings of workshops.
All groups are held online, and new members are always welcome, regardless of whether their adoptions were through Barker or through another agency. For more information on any of Barker’s groups, please call 301-664-9664, email mkipnis@barkeradoptionfoundation.org, or check out the Barker Events Calendar.
Barker also can support those involved in open adoptions, arrangements that an increasing number of birth and adoptive parents are choosing. As in all relationships, complicated or challenging issues sometimes arise, and birth or adoptive parents may feel the need to seek professional guidance. Barker can help them to navigate these unique relationships to maximize the benefits of open adoption for all members of the adoption circle.
The Barker Adoption Foundation offers several events for your elemataray and middle school children. Mindful Movement on October 13, 2024 is a workshop for young adoptees to learn more about what worry is, how it impacts our bodies & minds, and how movement can be a tool for calming! We will utilize mindfulness, movement, and group support to help manage childhood stress & anxiety when it arises.
We are also offering a Summer Program for rising 4th to 8th graders from August 19, 2024-August 23, 2024. Our expert facilitators will focus on empowering your child’s sense of self and resiliency, strengthening friendships and social skills, managing big emotions, exploring integrating adoption into identity, and having fun!
Please check Barker’s Event Calendar for dates of upcoming activities and to register.
The Barker Adoption Foundation’s Family and Post-Adoption Services Department offers a variety of services specifically geared to adult adoptees.
Whether or not your adoption was through Barker, adoptees older than 18 are all welcome to attend our Adopted Persons Group or to request individual counseling from Barker social workers, all of whom have extensive experience working with all members of the adoption circle.
Every adoptee has his or her own unique feelings about being adopted. For some, feelings about adoption may periodically arise, yet generally remain “back burner” issues in their lives. For others, feelings about adoption can be more complex or dominant.
Barker’s experienced counselors are available to provide brief or longer term individual counseling and support on a variety of issues that may arise. Adoptees have found Barker’s counseling helpful as they explore their adoptive identity, seek to understand how adoption may affect identity, understand loss and intimacy, examine relationships with family and friends, and navigate the complexities of the search and reunion process.
Barker facilitates a monthly discussion group for adopted adults to explore adoptive identity and issues of common interest. Participants who either are considering or are in the search and reunion process have found the group to be a supportive peer framework for learning from the experiences of others, exploring and sharing new ideas, and processing feelings and emotions. The group is open to any adopted adult regardless of the agency that they were adopted through. It is facilitated by a Barker social worker who is also an adopted adult. The group meets the third Wednesday of every month from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. virtually.
Check out Barker’s Events Calendar for more information
Adults who were adopted through Barker may request non-identifying background information that is contained in their files. A summary of non-identifying information can be shared in a written report that is prepared by a Barker agency social worker. Depending on the amount of information in the file, this may include medical information, social history, circumstances of birth parents at the time of placement, birth history, foster home information, and information related to contact, if any, received from the birth parent since placement.
Adults who were adopted through Barker may ask to initiate a search process to seek out birth parents and determine whether they are interested in contact. Please contact the Family and Post-Adoption Services Department at 301-664-9664 or postadoptteam@barkeradoptionfoundation.org for more information.
Barker’s highly regarded annual adoption and foster care conference was held in the Rockville, MD this year! It offered the opportunity to hear from some of the nation’s leading adoption experts and from all members of the adoption circle about their experiences navigating the adoption journey. Adopted adults have found the conference to be helpful in exploring adoptive identity, learning about the experiences of others in search and reunion, hearing about the latest trends in adoption, and networking with other adult adoptees.
