‘A Family Orchard’
Along with the arrival of November, the beginning of the holiday season, and the warmth of family and gratitude warding off the colder months’ chill, so too comes the advent of National Adoption Awareness Month. While adoption has long been a viable avenue for families to grow, it’s still an option steeped in misconceptions, even as the way we define a family continues to evolve and accommodate love in all its forms.
Some experienced, impassioned local experts shared how they both support and assist everyone in the adoption triad—the birth family, the adoptive family and, most importantly, the child—to ensure that those children know they’re surrounded by a community that Christopher Peszka, district supervisor for Adoptions From The Heart, describes as “not a family tree but a family orchard.”
What kind of adoptions are there?
“There’s two types of adoptions that we typically handle. The first set are DCP&P [Division of Child Protection and Permanency], formerly known as DYFS [Division of Youth and Family Services]. Those are kids who are in foster care and their parents typically have been involved in the court system. If those kids are being placed for adoption, it means the parents have lost their parental rights or surrendered them voluntarily through a judicial process. Typically the adoptive parents in that case or the foster family has been involved for a number of years because those kids get placed when they first go into care and then they kind of wind their way through the system, so it can be a couple years between when they first get placed and when the child is finally available for adoption.
“There’s two types of adoptions that we typically handle. The first set are DCP&P [Division of Child Protection and Permanency], formerly known as DYFS [Division of Youth and Family Services]. Those are kids who are in foster care and their parents typically have been involved in the court system. If those kids are being placed for adoption, it means the parents have lost their parental rights or surrendered them voluntarily through a judicial process. Typically the adoptive parents in that case or the foster family has been involved for a number of years because those kids get placed when they first go into care and then they kind of wind their way through the system, so it can be a couple years between when they first get placed and when the child is finally available for adoption.
“For private adoptions, most people are typically a step-parent adoption because a biological parent is just not involved with the child for whatever reason. In that instance, you’ll get a step-parent who’s often already been acting in the role of the parent and they want to solidify that legal relationship.”
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—AllynMarie Smedley, Esq., founder, Smedley Law Group
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—AllynMarie Smedley, Esq., founder, Smedley Law Group
Why is it important to have a lawyer in your corner during the adoption process?
“For one, you can’t do an adoption without a lawyer in New Jersey. … My role is to ensure that everybody has a very clear understanding of the law and that they understand, for good or for bad, what the risks are and that they make informed decisions about what they’re doing. There are very different laws for different parts of the adoption triad: For example, in New Jersey, when you sign what’s called ‘surrender to adoption,’ you have to wait at least 72 hours after the baby’s birth, and when you sign it with a licensed New Jersey agency, it’s full, final and irrevocable. There is real gravity in making this decision.”
—Tara E. Gutterman, Esq., founder, Adoption ARC
“For one, you can’t do an adoption without a lawyer in New Jersey. … My role is to ensure that everybody has a very clear understanding of the law and that they understand, for good or for bad, what the risks are and that they make informed decisions about what they’re doing. There are very different laws for different parts of the adoption triad: For example, in New Jersey, when you sign what’s called ‘surrender to adoption,’ you have to wait at least 72 hours after the baby’s birth, and when you sign it with a licensed New Jersey agency, it’s full, final and irrevocable. There is real gravity in making this decision.”
—Tara E. Gutterman, Esq., founder, Adoption ARC
What kind of support is available to families in the adoption community?
“With the expecting or birth parents, so much of that is counseling and educating them about how adoption works if that’s something they’re considering. And I think for us, it’s really all about options or choices: We often approach it as adoption social workers almost going with the default that you’re going to parent your child and identifying the obstacles or the barriers to you raising or parenting your child. We’ll take them through various options, which could include getting assistance or support from other family members, perhaps placing their child temporarily in a foster care-type setting as just a short-term thing, or certainly adoption, and that’s more of a permanent and long-term solution.”
—Christopher Peszka
“With the expecting or birth parents, so much of that is counseling and educating them about how adoption works if that’s something they’re considering. And I think for us, it’s really all about options or choices: We often approach it as adoption social workers almost going with the default that you’re going to parent your child and identifying the obstacles or the barriers to you raising or parenting your child. We’ll take them through various options, which could include getting assistance or support from other family members, perhaps placing their child temporarily in a foster care-type setting as just a short-term thing, or certainly adoption, and that’s more of a permanent and long-term solution.”
—Christopher Peszka
What misconceptions do you find yourself often correcting?
“A lot of times, caucasian parents who want to adopt will say ‘I want a biracial child’ because they still want to identify with the child since they’re half white—but the thing is, that child is going to identify more with the minority culture. I think it’s really important to educate people on that. Another misconception is that birth parents don’t really care about their children, but I think we’ve made great headway in correcting that in the past 30 years.”
—Tara E. Gutterman, Esq.
“A lot of times, caucasian parents who want to adopt will say ‘I want a biracial child’ because they still want to identify with the child since they’re half white—but the thing is, that child is going to identify more with the minority culture. I think it’s really important to educate people on that. Another misconception is that birth parents don’t really care about their children, but I think we’ve made great headway in correcting that in the past 30 years.”
—Tara E. Gutterman, Esq.
“Some of the misconception about adoption is that women or couples that place their children for adoption are 16-year-old high school students. In reality, we see that both individuals and couples who make a plan of adoption really run the gamut in terms of age, where they are in their lives, and whether they’re a student or a professional. You can’t really come into this with any preconceived notions about who are the folks that ultimately choose to place a child for adoption.”
—Christopher Peszka
—Christopher Peszka
“Some people think adoption may be cost-prohibitive, like a private adoption, but there are a ton of kids in the system who need families, from infants all the way up to adult kids. … There’s no right way to do an adoption but I wish more people knew about the DCP&P system and helping those kids.”
—AllynMarie Smedley, Esq.
—AllynMarie Smedley, Esq.
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Published and copyrighted in South Jersey Magazine, Volume 21, Issue 7 (October 2024)
Published and copyrighted in South Jersey Magazine, Volume 21, Issue 7 (October 2024)
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Author: Madeleine Maccar
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