Supporting the Adoption Constellation: Expanding Mental Health Services During National Adoption Month
By: Erika G. Schmitt, MSW, LSW
Director of Counseling & Family Support Services at The Children’s Home & Lemieux Family Center
Each November marks National Adoption Month, a time when we raise awareness about adoption. Adoption served as The Children’s Home of Pittsburgh’s founding program in 1893. Since then, we have operated as a full-service infant adoption agency, home study service provider, State Wide Adoption Network (SWAN) affiliate, and foster care provider. We also provide counseling services surrounding adoption.
Mental health support is crucial to all members of the adoption constellation, which consists of birth/first parents – who make the hard decision to choose adoption for their child, – adoptive parents – anxiously waiting for a child, – the adopted child themselves, and all others connected to a child’s adoption story. Counseling can help birth/first parents who struggle with making an adoption decision and the grief that follows, as well as adoptive parents who have infertility and losses preceding the adoption or need support during the long wait time for a child. Adopted youth who have questions about their identity may wonder about their birth/first parents, may feel a sense of abandonment and may seek cultural connections. In all these cases, adoption-competent counselors support the adoption constellation in healing and self-growth.
While The Children’s Home has always informally provided counseling for the adoption constellation, we have expanded these much-needed services. Over the past two year we have:
- Worked to become insurance credentialed, which will allow more families access to care
- Extended our reach and capacity to serve anyone in the state of PA connected to adoption
- Trained and hired additional counselors
- Offered a teen support group for adopted youth
- Served foster youth who have experienced significant trauma in their journeys and have
- Expanded infertility counseling services for families just beginning the family-building journey
As outlined in our latest Community Health Needs Assessment, overall access to timely mental help support was ranked the third highest health priority in our community, ranking closely with pediatric therapy services and affordable, quality childcare. To respond, we have begun to include marital counseling, grief counseling, and counseling for families and children who have medical needs in our cadre of care.
Ongoing support from philanthropic partners like the Allegheny County Medical Society (ACMS) Foundation has been essential. This relationship means that we can continue offering critical resources and opportunities for some of our community’s most vulnerable children and families.
Counseling scholarships allow us to provide services as we grow and serve the uninsured and underinsured children and families in Pennsylvania ongoing. As The Children’s Home has a long history of treating uninsured patients and those who cannot afford private pay, having funding to support those most in need of services is crucial to our mission and operations.
In addition to counseling scholarships, ACMS has funded car seat certification and breastfeeding counseling accreditation for our Pediatric Specialty Hospital, scholarships for our Pediatric VIEW program, and CPR and in-service training for our Child’s Way staff. We are extremely grateful to ACMS for their decades of support and advocacy.
To learn more about our Adoption & Permanency and Counseling services:
- Attend our National Adoption Month Event on Saturday, November 2nd at Trace Brewing
- Visit our website
Erika G. Schmitt, MSW, LSW
Director of Counseling & Family Support Services
[email protected]
412-441-4884
The Children’s Home of Pittsburgh & Lemieux Family Center, established in 1893, is an independent, nonprofit organization with a mission to promote the health and well‐being of infants and children through services that establish and strengthen the family. Our programs include Adoption & Permanency, Child’s Way®, Pediatric Specialty Hospital, Pediatric VIEW, Counseling, and Therapy.
Our 30-bed Pediatric Specialty Hospital focuses on family-centered care in a home-like atmosphere. Child’s Way, our center for medically fragile children, we offer preschool, daycare, and before- and after-school care for children, age birth to age 21. Our Adoption and Permanency staff works with children, kids in foster care, birthparents, and adoptive families. World-renowned Pediatric VIEW focuses on pediatric cortical visual impairment, the leading cause of visual impairment in all developed countries. Our counseling services address growing mental health needs, creating a holistic culture of healing and help and addressing the current problem of long wait times and scarcity of providers. Specialized therapy prioritizes cohesive, comprehensive treatment through occupational, physical, feeding, speech, developmental, and vision services.
In addition to these programs, we offer free housing for patients and families in our on‐site Lemieux Family Center and provide more than $4 Million in charity care annually.