I was lucky enough to spend the day with Amanda DeAngelis at the Infant Adoption Training Initiative held at Poudre Valley Hospital today. For those of you that aren’t familiar with what that is, here is a quick summary of the training’s goals:

• To increase the number of health care professionals who are comfortable presenting adoption options and who feel confident in their knowledge and the legal process.
• To increase the health professionals ability to make appropriate referrals.
• To expand training curricula to include relevant legal information, address cultural sensitivity, and educate on the practices of adoption.

Amanda and I have been working with local adoption agencies to offer childbirth education, doula services and birth photography to women that are considering an adoption plan.

This training educated us on how to speak about adoption, how to address the option available, current laws, and what resources are available. While we won’t be adoption counselors, it was so valuable to understand the work they do and how it would come in to play with the work we do as doulas.

Adoption counseling and doula services do share a lot of the same principals- to educate, inform client about options and allow clients to come to their own decision, free of your influence or opinions.

You can learn more about the training here.

Looking forward to continuing down this path.