Agency: how to choose

ekchild · #1 (**permalink**) 04-09-2007, 04:38 PM

i am not sure how and what to look for in a agency. Anyone in ohio if you know any good places let me know
Ann: what agency did you use?
ANY ADVICE would help
thanks
i just not sure, i dont want to choose a bad one

amberl10 · #2 (**permalink**) 04-09-2007, 06:03 PM

We are using Bethany Christian Services. We did a lot of research and ended up getting information from 4 different agencies. We narrowed it down to 2 different agencies based on their reputation but finally chose Bethany because they always responded to my emails and phone calls right away, one of the other agencies took days to respond. Plus it is close to our town and I felt more comfortable being able to talk with them face to face when we needed to.

theluvof2moms · #3 (**permalink**) 04-10-2007, 05:49 AM

Hi Erin,
I'm not in Ohio but I thought I might be able to help with this one.

First, remember that you don't necessarily have to use an agency in your state you can look outside of the state they just have to be licensed to work in your state. For example I am in MD but my agency is actually based out of Virginia but still just a car ride or a metro away.

L and I talked to some people we know who have adopted and to our social worker to see what agencies they recommended we got the same two agencies over and over. So we set up meetings to interview the agency and attended any free begining seminars they had. Well I HATED the first agency and everyone I know loves them. I left the meetings crying I even sat down with the director and she was less then impressive to me. So we interviewed the second agency and L didn't like them to much and they had a really hard time returning my phone calls and providing any follow up after our meeting. So we talked to our social worker and expressed our concerns and she referred us to the third agency L and I went and interview the director and she was awesome, we LOVED her she answered all of our questions talked to us for a long time and followed up with us. It was great!

When we meet with each person we asked them why their agency was better then the next, what kind of attention we could expect from them? How they would communicate with us through the wait? What kind of support would we have while traveling? How they recieved the children for referral? We had many more questions but you get the idea. If your not able to talk to the director try and talk to the person who is in charge of the program you'll be working with. Make sure you feel like you can truly get along with these people you will be working with them for a while and you need to feel like you can trust them. If they aren't returning e-mails and phone calls in a timely fashion for YOU and DH then move on. Trust your gut feelings!

Hope that was helpful!

nicoleb · #4 (**permalink**) 04-10-2007, 06:58 AM

Hi,
I am not in Ohio, but I can tell you how we came to choose our agency. After our 2nd loss we weren't sure if we were going to keep trying so we started to go to informational meetings. We walked out of the first one very disgusted and decided maybe this wasn't for us. We ended up going to 4 informational meetings total and after we walked out of the last one at LSS we decided in the car on the way home that this was our place. They have been nothing but wonderful! I guess the best way I can describe it is that we knew in our heart that "these were our people!"
Good luck to you,
Nicole

ekchild · #5 (**permalink**) 04-11-2007, 02:54 PM

Thanks to y'all for trying to help us out. We have called and asked numerous places for infomation packet so we can decide on a agency. The only thing is that most of them are all out of state, we should have the packets by friday, i cant wait
thanks again
good luck to y'all

llamamama02 · #6 (**permalink**) 04-13-2007, 06:20 AM

it is a hard decision to make. I was and am always afraid of making the wrong decision. We went to 3 info meetings with different agencies and we went with our gut feeling. The agency we chose is in our state which is a bonus and everytime I called or sent an email I was answered right away. That made me feel good. We also know that a good friend of our used this agency and that is how we found it.

mildlydelirious · #7 (**permalink**) 04-13-2007, 11:24 AM

You know, I'm not much help with this one. I completely went on instinct. I didn't have a clue of where to go so I just followed what my solar plexus was telling me.

Hope you find the perfect one for you.

~m