This training site was developed by three social workers whose combined experience in child welfare and adoption specialization totals more than 85 years. We are all Licensed Certified Social Workers and Private Independent Practitioners. Our varied experiences include serving as directors of child placing agencies, directors of public welfare agencies, statewide directors of public programs that recruit and train foster and adoptive families, and that provide support for families created through adoption.

Early in our careers, each of us was a child protective service worker and an adoption placement worker. We later supervised units that provided those services. In other positions, assigned to the public statewide office of adoption, we placed children, interviewed adult adoptees in search of birth families, and facilitated meetings between these adoptees and their families. We have worked with birthmothers as they explore and make adoptive decisions for their children. We have trained professionals and families in general issues of child welfare and in the specialty of adoption. One of us is an adoptive mother.