OA&FS continuing services during COVID-19.
Open Adoption & Family Services cares deeply for the health and well-being of our community. We hold you all in our thoughts as we collectively work to keep our families, our communities and our world healthy and safe for everyone. Our hearts go out to everyone impacted by this global pandemic.
During this time of uncertainty, we want to reassure you that we are deeply committed to continuing to provide our full array of services as you move forward in your process. In accordance with CDC recommendations to minimize the spread of COVID-19, we’ve modified the ways we deliver services and will continue to adapt as needed. In order to remain consistently available while prioritizing the health and safety of our clients, employees and community members, we’ve made the following changes:
- Counselors will continue meeting with clients for pregnancy options counseling, application & intake interviews, homestudy interviews, adoption planning meetings, and post-placement visits.
- These meetings will occur via phone and video-conferencing platforms such as Google Hangouts, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams. There will not be in-person meetings.
- Your counselor will let you know how they will approach coordinating the services you need.
- Clients and community members can continue to contact OA&FS in the ways we’ve always been available (OA&FS phone number, online inquiries, email).
- All OA&FS staff is working remotely. Our physical offices are closed for the time being.
- All group meetings and gatherings will be held via video conferencing. This includes the Adoption Information Meetings, the Pre-Adoption Seminar; Waiting Family Pool Parties.
- OA&FS counselors will continue to facilitate placements, adapting to prevailing guidelines and recommendations.
- Outreach presentations to community service providers will be conducted via webinar or video conferencing.
- Our Facebook groups remain a wonderful way to connect with fellow members the OA&FS community, and our monthly Bulletin will continue.
Thank you for your understanding, flexibility and trust. We look forward to embracing creative opportunities for connection with you all, and will continue to be in touch as we navigate this together. We remain committed to supporting vibrant and healthy open adoption relationships with all of you who are part of our community.
Open Adoption & Family Services
Resources for Expectant Parents and Adoptive Families
You have choices. We’ll support and empower you.
At Open Adoption & Family Services, we support pregnant women and couples in making decisions about their pregnancy options – parenting, abortion, adoption – in an atmosphere of dignity and respect. We’re a pro-choice agency that welcomes diversity. Our fully open adoptions include ongoing visits and lifelong services.
Counseling is wonderful. I am very grateful to have the opportunity to share my experience and feelings with someone who understands what I’m going through.
Are you pregnant or parenting?
Call us to speak with a counselor.
Are you pregnant or parenting? Or is your partner, or someone close to you, pregnant or parenting? When you talk to our counselors, you’ll find the understanding and support you’re seeking. Call any time, day or night, 1-800-772-1115.
We’re honored to offer our services to women and couples throughout the United States. If you live in Oregon or Washington and would like to meet in person we have offices in Portland and Eugene, Oregon and Seattle, Washington or we’ll come to you. We can also meet remotely via Google Hangout, Zoom, Facetime, or Skype. (OA&FS can place children in adoption up to the age of three and one-half.)
Call 1-800-772-1115
A counselor can talk with you now. We’re available 24/7 to listen and provide you with a compassionate, non-judgmental space to talk about your thoughts and feelings. You’ll be treated with dignity and respect as you explore all of your options. Para Español 1-800-985-6763.
Fill Out Our Online Contact Form
A counselor will contact you shortly when submitted Monday-Friday from 9 am-5 pm PST. If outside of these hours, we’ll reach out to you the following weekday. Continue to form page.
If you’d like to inquire about becoming an adoptive parent, get started here.
Text “Open” to 971-266-0924
Available M-F, 9 am-5 pm PST.
“The Power of Choice” empowers pregnant women and couples.
Watch our video “The Power of Choice in Adoption”, and see how Open Adoption & Family Services’ unique, high-integrity model provides choice at every touchpoint. This creates lifelong relationships and lasting benefits for the birthmom, the child and the adoptive parents.
Birthmother Taylor shares her open adoption journey.
Taylor is an OA&FS birthmom who placed her son, August, in 2011. She shared her heartfelt open adoption story of friendship, love and connection for publication in the Rational Enquirer . The Rational Enquirer is a youth sexual health magazine that covers a wide variety of topics meant to inform and connect people in conversation. It’s created by a collaboration of the Oregon Teen Pregnancy Task Force and the Youth Sexual Health Program. We appreciate the partnerships OA&FS has with these organizations.
Open adoption: an alternative to state adoption.
Pregnant and parenting moms at risk of state child welfare involvement have choices. If the state removes your child, you have three options:
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Reunification
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State Adoption
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OA&FS Open Adoption
OA&FS birthmoms advocate for open adoption at Oregon’s state legislative session.
Their distinct open adoption experiences have clearly inspired them to speak authentically and articulately about the rights of birthmoms in adoption. They feel that women exploring adoption deserve to be treated with dignity and respect as they access transparent information about all of their choices.
Exploring adoption? Know where to go.
As an expectant or adoptive parent, you have the right to high-integrity adoption services. At Open Adoption & Family Services, we recognize and honor this. Our gallery of tips highlight some of the most important aspects of an adoption agency’s practices. These reflect the values we bring to every adoption.
15 reasons to choose Open Adoption & Family Services.
BECAUSE
we give absolute equality to every pregnancy option: parenting, abortion and adoption. Our complete focus is on personal choice.
BECAUSE
we provide a safe place for pregnant women and couples to make their choice.
BECAUSE
we do not practice coercion.
BECAUSE
we have an empowerment model grounded in dignity and respect.
BECAUSE
of our high quality services, if a woman thoughtfully explores all of her options and decides she wants to plan an adoption, she will be best served through our agency.
BECAUSE
we facilitate high-integrity fully open adoptions in which the birth and adoptive parents form genuine relationships, much like extended family.
BECAUSE
we welcome all belief systems and are not religiously affiliated.
BECAUSE
we embrace diversity and welcome LGBTQ clients.
BECAUSE
our information is transparent and accessible. There are not separate messages (or hidden agendas) for expectant parents and adoptive parents.
BECAUSE
of our thorough counseling and relationship building, our adoption disruption rates of 4-7% are far below the 20% national average.
BECAUSE
we provide lifelong services for birth and adoptive families.
BECAUSE
our counselors are highly qualified, experienced and compassionate. They’re a dedicated crew whose roster brims with Masters degrees in social work, counseling and marriage and family therapy. Many of them are also licensed clinical social workers.
BECAUSE
we cultivate a vibrant open adoption community and host events such as an annual birthmothers’ retreat, summer picnics, holiday parties and speaking engagements from nationally-known open adoption experts.
BECAUSE
we value the input of birthparents, adoptive parents and adoptees so much, we include them on our Board of Directors.
BECAUSE
expectant parents trust us to support them in this complex decision-making process. And prospective adoptive parents choose us to be their partner in this journey.
Our adoptive families want to build a genuine relationship with you.
Together we have climbed mountains, sailed oceans, and discovered natural hot springs and we look forward to more adventures together with our growing family. Read more …
Our home and our hearts always have an open door – to our neighbors, friends, and family. We couldn’t imagine starting a family through adoption without transparency, and welcoming birthparents into our extended family. Read more …
Maya is creative, disorganized and cares deeply about the people around her. Sam is thoughtful, dependable, and pretends to be more serious than he is. We don't have the same taste in almost anything and are still regularly amused by this. Read more …
For us, a bigger table is a happier table. We have cherished welcoming Addie’s birth family into our lives and look forward to welcoming our second child’s birth family to our home and table as well. Read more …
View All Waiting Families
Watch OA&FS real life stories.
Your window into the world of our progressive, pro-choice agency.
These innovative videos show you each stage of the process. Learn about our program from the people living it!
Open adoptees speak out.
The first open adoptees are now young adults. We’ve amplified their voices in these exclusive videos as they share how meaningful their open adoption experiences have been. They lead the way for new generations to thrive.
Watch Their Stories Now
Origins Therapy strengthens individuals and families in all their forms.
Does your story include any of these roles?
As a result of the various paths to parenthood, there is an emerging need for a new type of emotional support. OA&FS offers counseling for those whose lives have been touched by adoption, (private, state and international), surrogacy and reproductive technology. We call this Origins Therapy.
Our therapy will provide individuals and families with clarity, openness and honesty through the profound life experiences and choices they are facing. Do you have unresolved issues and emotions regarding your origins? Your child’s origins? Your role in helping others build their family? We’ll meet you wherever you are on your journey. We can help.