Services Overview

We provide a comprehensive range of services—to meet the needs of waiting children and youths ... and the families who serve them

While Diakon Adoption & Foster Care provides extensive supportive and post-adoption services, as well as pregnancy services for those who need assistance in determining the direction for a pregnancy, we offer four primary services:

Whichever process you choose, we can help you on the journey, ensuring that your experience is a rewarding one for everyone involved.

Our corollary services include ...

Child Profile
A child profile is a complete child history that can be used to inform a prospective foster or adoptive family of the child’s or youth’s background. The document also is provided to children when they are old enough to understand their history. Birth parents’ identifying information is not provided on this profile.

Child Preparation
Child preparation consists of a minimum of 10 meetings with a child to help him or her accept or understand the past. Sorting through often-saddening family histories, adoption team members walk children through each step of their lives.

Working on a “Life Book” for the child, Diakon team members help the children to look at important topics such as where and when they were born, information about their birth family as appropriate, why they came into placement, and other pertinent information. We also discuss first-family and/or foster-care memories with the child to help resolve the emotions of grieving and loss that often accompany life within the child-welfare system.

Child-Specific Recruitment/Family-Finding and Family Group Conferencing
Intensive family-finding services are offered to children and youths, both for those who are adjudicated dependent and those children who have open family-service plans and remain in the birth family setting. A family group conference is the end result of this service to provide support for the reunification of children with their birth parents or permanent placement with relatives after the children have entered county custody.

This service also can be offered to facilitate the child’s continued placement with their family of origin—focused on providing the resources necessary to assure the birth family successfully completes the family service plan and is no longer involved with a county children and youth services agency after having met goals within family service plan. the FSP. This service is completed within fostering connections timelines for location and identification of kin resources and can be provided in bi-monthly increments. This service is available for children involved with both the county juvenile justice and children and youth services systems.

Adoption Search & Reunion Services
Diakon Adoption & Foster Care offers Adoption Search & Reunion Services to adoptees 18 years of age or older and whose adoption was finalized by Diakon or its predecessor programs, Tressler Adoption Services or Adoption Services of The Lutheran Home at Topton. Birth-parents also may request this service if the child they placed for adoption is 21 years of age or older and was adopted through Diakon or the two predecessor agencies.