In-Services & Adoption Training for Health Care & Social Work Professionals

The Cradle provides educational in-service presentations by request of any health care or social service organization. We give presentations to hospitals, health clinics, crisis pregnancy centers, county health departments, social service agencies, and many other organizations. We can issue CEU's for social workers and CE's for nurses, too.

You can request an educational in-service about any of the topic suggestions below: 

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The topic of adoption is often surrounded by questions and misunderstandings. Who makes decisions for a baby in the hospital? How long does a mother have to change her mind about placing a child? What’s the difference between safe haven and adoption? Why would someone choose open adoption? Learn the facts and become a better advocate for your patients.

Learn about who birth parents are, how they feel about their pregnancies, why they consider the option of adoption, what they are looking for from professionals and how best to support them before, during and after their hospital experience. Recommendations for practice within the hospital setting will be reviewed; case examples and videos of birth moms reflecting on their experiences will be utilized.

This course covers social workers' ethical considerations in infant adoption, focusing specifically on the treatment of women considering an adoption plan for their baby. Key principles of social work and child welfare are explored and then applied to real life scenarios. 

When a mother presents at your hospital with the intention of relinquishing her newborn, how should you respond? Learn how the Illinois Safe Haven Act works, what you must have in place and how to best support mothers intending to make safe and permanent plans for their babies.

A comprehensive presentation outlining birth parent (both mother and father) rights and Adoption Law in Illinois. Also discusses how working with a reputable agency can protect the adoptive parents, birth parents, and children.  

An in-service designed to identify the emotional process birth mothers experience when considering an adoption plan. Discussions include what to expect, language to use, and how to be an advocate for your patient.  

A presentation specifically designed for physicians’ grand rounds. Focus on understanding the dynamics of unplanned pregnancy decisions, adoption resources today, and the physician’s role in the process.

Explore typical scenarios surrounding a patient who is considering adoption. This presentation will discuss the role of the nurse, including key interventions within the documented plan of care: social work referral, communication, legal rights, emotional components and support strategies for new moms considering adoption.

Navigating the professional relationship with a woman considering adoption can be intimidating. What about when there are obvious or not so obvious differences in your backgrounds? Learn how to best support and advocate for expectant parents considering the option of adoption while ensuring a respectful, thoughtful, and positive interaction. 

We are also happy to collaborate with you to become a routine part of your organization's orientation of new staff.

Video Transcript

My name’s Karin Peterson, I’m a social worker and I’ve been at The Cradle for 21 years. I’ve done a lot of different things over the years but currently I work in Community Outreach and Education.

Part of our mission at The Cradle is to bring adoption education and information to anyone interested in learning more about it and in particular professionals who might me be working with women and men considering the option of adoption.

Part of my position as the educator at The Cradle bringing adoption education out to the community is presenting not only to hospital social workers and agency social workers but also to nurses in a hospital setting or in a clinic setting and also to physicians. Another audience that I really enjoy speaking to are university students. I do a lot of guest lectures in some of the schools in Chicago for nurses and for medical students and for social work students.

Part of our commitment to bringing adoption education to the community is our ability to bring an adoption CEU for social workers or a nursing CE for nurse case managers and nurses, that we’re not out there providing Cradle infomercials, but we’re really committed to adoption education. And a piece of that is being able to provide the continuing education unit to the professionals for attending one of our one-hour sessions.

At The Cradle we’ve developed about six different adoption topics. Probably the one that is the most frequently requested, or the top two I would say, one is called “Debunking the Myths and Knowing the Facts About Adoption” where we really go through information about the law in Illinois, sort of how does adoption works, who is considering adoption today, why is she considering it, sort of what are birthparents’ motivations to look at this option.

The other topic that is almost just as frequently requested that I am presenting often is called “Ethical Considerations in Adoption.” So our ethics presentation covers several different scenarios that could take place in a hospital. We draw on real case examples that clients have shared with us about their experience and really sort of tease out best practices looking at it from a clinical perspective.

Slide: To learn more about our in-service topics… Contact Karin at (847)322-7365 Or visit www.cradle.org/adoption-traing-education