AdoptED Blog

Gladney welcomed some very excited guests this week for an AdoptED field trip our Fort Worth campus. A group of about 25 students from Burleson Centennial High School were taught about all the different aspects of adoption. They learned about the deep history of Gladney and our impact and role in the adoption world, and they were shown videos of real adoption stories from the perspectives of Birth Parents as well as Adoptive Parents. The AdoptED team and other Gladney staff did an amazing job of informing the students of how the modern adoption process operates and how far adoption has come.                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Early first period bell times. The stress of finding an open parking space. Lugging heavy bags up stairwells, down long hallways, and through masses of large teens. It is all worth it for an AdoptED high school presentation.

This week Gladney welcomed 50 students from Denton Guyer High School.  This is such an exciting time for the AdoptED team.  We love providing adoption education to students and changing perspectives about adoption.  It’s very humbling to realize that schools are eager to come to Gladney to learn about the adoption process and tour our campus.  The students bring such an energy and have some many insightful questions.   

We love to receive feedback from teachers and students on what they think of the AdoptED Virtual Classroom. The feedback helps us know what's working and what needs a tweak or two.

In early May we interviewed a Gladney caseworker for our ShiftED podcast (you'll get to hear this episode soon!). The plan was for Yvonne to come and speak about her job as an options counselor and her day-to-day life speaking with women in unplanned pregnancies. I have worked with Yvonne for many years and even tagged along to watch her navigate a relinquishment in a hospital many summers ago. I was touched by her compassion immediately. Personally, I knew her to be a single mother to two handsome boys and I have watched them grow on Instagram over the years, but I didn’t know her story until recently.

Being a teenager today is hard. With non-stop exposure of the internet world, there is a constant stream of knowledge, information, and comparison. Bullying, hormones, love, break ups, unhealthy and high expectations on top of a global pandemic all effect our student’s mental health. Then there are additional traumas that some of them may have experienced. I think of all of this and what it would be like to face an unplanned pregnancy at this stage of life. Heavy.