Who is Eligible, Page 8

Appendix III:

Other Adoption Activities for Employees in the Workplace

Today's climate, which supports family values so strongly, provides an ideal setting in which to introduce the idea of adoption benefits to your employer and to encourage visible support and encouragement of adoption. If your company does not provide adoption benefits to employees and you are considering adopting a child, you may want to bring to your personnel manager information about other companies that provide adoption benefits and suggest that similar benefits be incorporated into the benefits package of your employer. Bringing this article to him or her would be a good way to start that process.

Sometimes an employer needs general education about adoption in order to make a decision about whether or not to offer adoption benefits. In that case, the National Adoption Information Clearinghouse can provide you with brochures, factsheets, and other literature that will help.

If your company already has a solid adoption benefits policy, or perhaps to increase its interest in having one, you may be able to convince your company to sponsor one or more adoption-related activities. The following are some ideas. Maybe you can come up with some additional ideas of your own.

• Try to persuade your company to become an adoption advocate. Write or help them develop an article on adoption for the company newsletter. Such an article might feature an employee who has adopted.
• Ask the editor of the company publication if he or she will agree to begin a "Waiting Child" column featuring children in your State waiting for permanent families. The National Adoption Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, can help by providing photographs and information on appropriate children.
• Get permission to design a special recruitment or adoption education program for your company, including posters, brochures, films, and speakers.
• Ask your employer if it would be possible to incorporate an adoption message on company products or services. Examples include slogans printed on shopping bags and packages, placemats to distribute in family restaurants, and inserts in bills or advertisements.
• See if you can distribute adoption information desk-to-desk or through an insert in pay envelopes.
• Persuade your employer to provide "inkind" services such as printing, equipment, and supplies to a nonprofit adoption organization in your area. Find out if company employees can volunteer time during the work day to assist a fledgling adoption organization, such as an adoptive parent support group.
• Make a pitch before the company charitable contributions committee to make a monetary donation to an adoption agency for the purpose of purchasing radio or television air time to advertise the need for adoptive families.
• Ask the person in charge of facility management if space could be made available for adoption meetings, seminars, and training sessions in your company building.
• Get permission for an adoption display to be placed in the company lobby or cafeteria.
• Provide current information on adoption to personnel officers, to include information on adoption procedures and resources. Help them to help other employees interested in adoption.
• Ask your company to "Adopt a Child" and work with you and a community adoption agency to find an adoptive family for a specific child or sibling group.

There are many ways for employers to help facilitate the adoption of children in need of permanent families. They might provide direct adoption benefits, or they might participate in one or more of the activities mentioned above. Employers or employees seeking more information about adoption benefits and adoption in the workplace activities should contact the National Adoption Center at (215) 735-9988 or the National Adoption Information Clearinghouse at (888) 251-0075.

Credits: Child Welfare Information Gateway (http://www.childwelfare.gov)