So Excited About Partnering With WIC

The mission statement of Hope Cottage is "Building strong families through education, counseling and adoption."  Education is the first charge.  Hope Cottage has beefed up its efforts to educate people about adoption:  how it works, how it has changed over the years, the laws, etc.  Education Coordinator Heather Hussong shares recent outreach efforts to a local WIC office. 

Attempts to education Dallas County WIC offices about Hope Cottage’s services, and how to discuss the option of adoption, led to an appointment with a field service coordinator in an upper level office of Dallas County’s Health and Human Services Building.  Parking is scarce.  Dallas County residents travel here for assistance with STD testing, welfare, housing, and immunizations.  Sights are set on the agency with a commitment to pregnant women and children.  Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) is a health and nutrition program with a successful record for improving the diet of infants, children, and pregnant, postpartum and breastfeeding women who are at risk for nutrition-related illness.

With the email received from the WIC coordinator reporting, “I think that the subject of adoption might be a very sensitive one for most of our WIC participants… we want to be able to refer moms who directly ask for the information about adoption,” there is confidence in the offer for education on infant adoption.  Often those in need of nutritional support face challenges in other areas of pregnancy and/or parenting.  The calm and steady presence of WIC caseworkers, nurses, and dieticians offers an environment where a woman or couple may communicate parenting concerns they may not feel safe enough to communicate elsewhere.  The field coordinator’s passion for helping all members of the adoption triad is evident as she discusses helping an adoptive mother breastfeed, support birth parents need as they face difficult decisions, and her description of infants being born into situations they do not invite. 

While adoption is not for everyone, it cannot be denied education about adoption is for everyone serving pregnant and parenting women.  Dallas County WIC has scheduled three separate Understanding Infant Adoption trainings in an effort to reach as many staff as possible.  In the months of November, December, and January, Hope Cottage will return to teach WIC workers the history of adoption, types of adoption, neutral adoption language, legal rights, referral resources, and special issues dealing with birthfathers and teens.  Hope Cottage is proud to partner with WIC as part of The Infant Adoption Training Initiative.

Learn more about The Infant Adoption Training Initiative at:  www.iaatp.org

Learn more about Dallas County WIC at: http://www.dallascityhall.com/housing/wic_program.html

Hope Cottage is the oldest nonprofit, non sectarian adoption agency in Dallas. Since 1918 Hope Cottage has been building and nurturing strong families through counseling, education and adoption services.

If you have questions about adoption, please call Hope Cottage at 214.526.8721. 

If you are a woman facing an unplanned pregnancy and would like to talk to someone about adoption, please call Hope Cottage at 1.800.944.4464 or 214.404.4546.