Last June, LDS Family Services announced that they would no longer be working as an adoption agency, but that news was coming as to a solution. Today, the Church announced that solution: a new relationship between LDS Family Services and Adoption.com.
“We believe that the most important thing LDS Family Services can do for you, as hopeful adoptive parents, is to help provide more opportunities to connect with individuals who are considering placing a child for adoption,” David McConkie, LDS Family Services Adoption Group Manager, said.
Adoption.com was developed in 1997 by a BYU student, and is now the most-used adoption site, with millions of page views. Prospective adoptive parents will now have access to the services provided by both LDS Family Services and Adoption.com.
The new relationship between LDS Family Services and Adoption.com will exist as follows:
1. Couple must be sealed in the temple
2. Couple must create a parent profile on Adoption.com
3. LDS Family Services will request a recommendation from Bishop
4. Adoption.com will verify that you have a current home study
McConkie predicts that this new partnership will be revolutionary:
We’ve never done anything like this before, and it is going to be wonderful.
“With this new deal, we wanted to do something much larger,” CEO and founder of Adoption.com, Nathan Gwilliam, told LDS Living. “We wanted to revolutionize how adoption and parent profiles work.”
LDS Family Services will encourage expecting mothers and those looking to adopt to create parent profiles on Adoption.com before anything else. Through February 2016, the Church will pay for costs for prospective adoptive parents to list their information on a parent profile on Adoption.com. The usual cost for listing a parent profile is $199 per month, but users will get it for free starting immediately.
“The goal is to create more adoption opportunities,” Gwilliam told LDS.net. “When the Church was spending money before, subsidizing adoptions through LDS Family Services – paying for parent profiles is a much, much cheaper option. The ultimate goal is to create more adoption opportunities, and this is one way to do that.”
For more information about this new partnership, or to create your own parent profile, visit adoption.com/lds.
