Amara provides a high level of service to adoptive parents to help ensure that families are fully prepared to meet their new child’s lifelong need for love, safety and belonging. We bring to each family the benefit of our staff’s combined education and experience in the fields of social work, mental health, education and family therapy. 

Our Adoption Specialists work one-on-one with a family through each stage of the adoption process:

Step 1:  Learn and Submit Application

• Attend our Adoption Information Meeting
• Join us for a Pre-Application Interview
• Submit your application

Step 2: Family Preparation

We help your family prepare for adopting and parenting a child. We ask you to participate in training sessions, write your autobiographic story and have interviews with your Adoption Specialist.

The outcome of the family preparation phase is a comprehensive Home Study Document that tells the unique story of your family and your Foster Home License.

Step 3: Child Search, Match and Transition

When you have an approved Home Study Document and have been issued a Foster Home License, your Adoption Specialist begins the search for your child, which includes: 

• Researching children who live in foster care and who seek adoptive families, checking daily for updates.
• Attending Washington State meetings to learn more about children who are available for adoption.
• Coordinating with our Pregnancy Counselors to learn about birthparents seeking adoptive families for their infants.

When your Adoption Specialist identifies a potential match, she will work closely with you and with the child’s representative (State caseworker or Amara birthparent counselor) to determine whether this is the right match for you and the child. 

Following a match decision, a plan will be established to gradually transition the child into your home in a way that is most appropriate and sensitive to the needs of the child and your family. Following that transition plan, the child is placed in your home with adoption as the ultimate goal. 

Step 4: Child Placement and Post-Placement

Once the child is placed in your home, your family continues to receive our guidance and support. Your Adoption Specialist:

• Visits you monthly to see how you and the child are doing;
• Monitors the successful blending of the child within your family;
• Provides referrals for outside support when appropriate;
• Works with Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) to monitor the child’s legal case;
• Remains readily available and responsive via phone and email to provide additional support as needed.

Step 5: Adoption Finalization

You will hire your own lawyer for the finalization hearing, but your Adoption Specialist helps your family prepare for this event, including:

• Preparation of a Post-Placement Report required by the court.
• Updating all necessary documents and providing materials to your lawyer.

Step 6: Post-Finalization Services  

After your adoption finalization, we remain a resource to your family.

• An information and referral source when you have questions about parenting and your child.
• Possibly a conduit for communication between your family and the birth family.