How can you create an adoptive parent profile to help you stand out and show what makes you unique? To find out, join our guests Erin Quick, the Founder and CEO of PairTree and an adoptive mom, and Jess Nelson, the profile creation provider at Pairtree and a two-time birth mom.
In this episode, we cover:
This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them. Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:
Please leave us a rating or review RateThisPodcast.com/creatingafamily
Please leave us a rating or review RateThisPodcast.com/creatingafamily
How can you create an adoptive parent profile to help you stand out and show what makes you unique? To find out, join our guests Erin Quick, the Founder and CEO of PairTree and an adoptive mom, and Jess Nelson, the profile creation provider at Pairtree and a two-time birth mom.
In this episode, we cover:
This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them. Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:
Please leave us a rating or review RateThisPodcast.com/creatingafamily
Please leave us a rating or review RateThisPodcast.com/creatingafamily
Please pardon any errors, this is an automated transcript.
Dawn Davenport 0:00
Welcome, everyone to Creating a Family talk about foster adoptive and kinship care. I'm Dawn Davenport. I am the host of this show, but I'm also the director of a nonprofit creating a family.org. Today we're going to be talking about how to create a compelling adoptive parent profile. We will be talking with Erin Quick. She is the founder and CEO of PairTree, an organization dedicated to helping families navigate private adoption and the healthiest way possible. She has more than 20 years experience in global brand marketing. And most importantly, she is a two time adoptive mom. Erin's goal is to modernize adoptions in the US. We also have Jess Nelson, Jess runs the profile creation service at pear tree and she is also a two time birth mom. So we're thrilled to have both Erin and Jess here to talk about adoptive parent profiles. Just let's just jump in and begin with you. But let's start by making sure everybody's on the same page. I think most of our audience will know what we're talking about, but some might not. What is an adoptive parent profile?
Speaker 1 1:09
Great question. an adoptive parent profile is essentially going to be what is either presented to an expectant parent considering adoption or what they view when choosing an adopting family. And that can be in the form of an online profile or a profile book.
Dawn Davenport 1:28
Okay, we'll talk in a minute about the different formats they can take. Aaron, what are some of the other names we may hear? I think adoptive parent profile is the current preferred term, but you may still hear some other names. What are you hearing? Yeah, I
Erin Quick 1:44
mean, we hear online profile on inherent profile digital profiles, profile books, profile brochures,
Dawn Davenport 1:51
one that I'll throw out that I don't particularly like it. I think we've kind of phased it out. But it's called Dear birth mother, your birth mother letters, your birth mother's? Yeah, what the audience cannot see is that when I said that both Jess and Aaron wrinkled up their nose and distaste so. So actually, let me ask that just why is calling it a dear birth mother letter. And the fact that of course, it's not just a letter. But why is that not the preferred term now? Well,
Speaker 1 2:18
the biggest reason is, she's not a birth mother until after the baby is here, and consents or relinquishment have been signed. Up until that point, she is an expectant mother. And also you want to make sure that your profile book or your profile or your letter is inclusive, and you're writing to potentially both parents. So if it's a couple, considering an adoption plan, and your letter, or your book is addressed to Dear expectant mother, then you're excluding half of who is helping to make this really important decision.
Erin Quick 2:55
The other thing I would say about that, because we do I mean, we have one our online profiles on pear tree, and also in profile boxes, sometimes there is a section where adopting families are writing to this person that may pick them, or the couple that may pick them. But I think the other thing that we see often is they're almost carbon copies of each other. And so they a lot of adopting families was like the exact same things in them. And it's not that they don't feel them. So I don't want to discount their feelings in terms of like, you know, thinking that this is a brave decision, and she's so courageous, and that you can understand the situation that she's in, not untrue. But when you say the exact same thing, especially this is kind of the intro to your profile, you start to blend together with all the other adoptive families out there.
Dawn Davenport 3:39
Yeah, that makes sense. Well, you know, the goal behind an adoptive parent profile is to be yourself, represent your family, honestly, represent your family, authentically trying to help yourself stand out. That's a lot to ask of a particular anything, especially when it's something is so important, becoming a parent. So I don't know that there are too many people who jump into it with a boy, this is going to be fun cannot wait to begin. So if you're feeling that way, please know you are not alone. Aaron, what are some of the different ways that agencies use adoptive parent profiles?
Erin Quick 4:19
So again, like the intent is to be able to show an expectant parent or expectant family when they come into the agency or come into the attorney's office to give them a sense of who these families are. So we see kind of a most often is an expectant mom might see an online profile listed on an agency or attorneys website, and be interested in reach out to that professional. So that's kind of one of the ways that they'll see them. But if they're actually in office, typically the practice that we've seen employed is they will sit with an expectant mom or family and have them walk through profile books. Kind of like we say like the Uber shores of adopting families.
Dawn Davenport 5:02
A question that we get asked a fair amount from adoptive parents is, and I'm going to direct this to you, Aaron, do agencies share their home study? So they've had a home study? Usually it's a fairly lengthy report, including background checks and medical history and things such as that. Is it common for agencies to share that with expectant couples or moms? I
Erin Quick 5:25
don't know any agencies that would share a home study with an expectant parent or a couple. Okay, what I do know, and we required a pear tree too, is that families have to be home study approved in order to create an online profile or profile book. And I
Dawn Davenport 5:40
think that's pretty typical. Your home study is done. And that's basically the entry level of saying okay, background checks, were your references are good. You have the economic stability, and the physical and emotional health stability things such as that that are we're looking for in a home study. And then you enter the process of okay, your next step is usually then the profile. Okay, just how many profiles isn't expected couple or mom usually given to look at I can't imagine, talk about it's weighted on the prospective adoptive parent side. But it's equally, if not more, so weighted for the birth parents? What's typical? Or does it change so much by agency, every
Speaker 1 6:24
agency or attorney is going to be different. But the first step in the process of determining what profile books or who is shown to an expectant mom is kind of matching up what everyone is open to, as far as potential exposure race open or closed, if she has a location preference. So an agency or an attorney is going to go through and make sure that the profiles that they're presenting to an expectant mom, match what she is looking for in an adopting family first. And then I know of agencies and attorneys that will show her five profile books, or some that will show her 20 Oh, gosh, I know, I think every professional has a different number that they start with. And then every expectant mom is going to be different. I have worked with expectant moms that have said I want to see everyone. And so we've given her a stack of 15 profile books to look through. And then I know expectant moms that have said I only want to see two or three, I'll
Erin Quick 7:32
say, just to add to that, I think it really puts the onus and this is where I think we're a little bit contrarian about this is it puts a lot of the pressure and the onus on the adoption professional to really help the expected mom or family, think deeply about what they want in the future. And what's really important to them in terms of like values that they hold, dear, that they would want to see extended into whichever family that they choose. I mean, that is an art, it takes time. And that's why you know, adoption professionals, they're licensed to do that. And I think that's where we want to see even more work done on the making sure that you know, because if she wants to see 15 families wonderful. And if that agency only has five that meet her criteria, I don't mean to kind of tangent this, but the survey that the NCAA just put out about what's very important to expect to parents and birth parents, and that is accurate information. And it's free from coercion. If you know an agency only has or carries five families or 10 families, and none of them are what she wants. What's the responsibility of that agency to find other families for her?
Dawn Davenport 8:41
It does seem that we need to be catering to what the expectant couple, or woman want because she's making or they are making a huge decision and, and different people process different ways. For me 20 would just I would feel on the other hand, I'm also a person who is terribly research oriented. So I might be very well. People are the ones who said since 50, my wife, please, you know, who knows what I might do? So just as each adoption agency or adoption attorney have different info they want you to include in the profile, or is there pretty much a universal agreement on what topics need to be covered. I think there's
Speaker 1 9:23
a universal list of topics that need to be covered about you, your home, if you have any other kids in the house, pets, things that are really important to you, your family, your story. And then some other agencies and attorneys might have unique things to them that they want to see in a profile. But overall, the things that you should put in a profile are pretty universal.
Erin Quick 9:51
One thing that we do see with professionals that they ask for is to have somewhat of an anonymous profile in terms of the contact information because for families that are building their own profile books or doing independent or self matching, they'll often put their contact information in a profile books. But most adoption professionals don't want your contact information because they want to be the one that is helping kind of facilitate the introductions between family and extended family. Okay.
Dawn Davenport 10:19
Hey, guys, did you know that creating a family has a free monthly newsletter, it is a terrific resource for not only our own resources, but other resources that we have found that we think would help you be the best parent possible to your child, you can sign up by going to this link Bitly slash transracial guide, that's bi T dot L y slash trans racial guide. And the reason that's the URL is because when you subscribe, you will get a free downloadable guide the strengthening and supporting your transracial adoptee. It's a terrific guide, it's a terrific resource for you. In addition, the newsletter is terrific. So sign up at Bitly slash trans racial guide. So what should be on your cover? I would assume if we're making analogies to books, you know, we certainly know that the cover of a book is a very important feature, it also makes a big difference on which books are picked up, you know, when you're browsing in a bookstore or a library? Would the same hold true Aaron for profile books? And so what should be included on the cover?
Erin Quick 11:29
Yeah, I mean, I think at least all of the products that we're creating, it's typically a picture of the people that are adopting whether it's a single person or a couple and first names. And I think the one thing that we say that's kind of holds true to the cover and everything throughout your book is, and you said it early on, Don is to be as authentic as possible. And so we say, you know, like pancakes over perfect. I've never been able to make pancakes in my whole life without making a huge mess in the kitchen. And that is what you know, an expectant mom is she wants to know what like, what is day to day look like? Not? What does your family look like when they're color coordinated in a wheat field, you know, you have a professional photographer. And so I think making sure that you are communicating who you really are the kind of the personality of your family. And then the other thing we say all the time is you need to be more afraid of being the same than you are being different. That's the advice we are constantly giving to adoptive families as they look at other profile books almost as a recipe for what they should do. And we're like, no, think deeply about, like what makes you you? And then how do you communicate that in the cover photo, and the language you're using in all the subsequent photos and the subsequent spreads? Okay,
Dawn Davenport 12:43
Jess, you alluded to this earlier, but I want to make sure that there's not something that in addition, what are the sections that you feel like should be included? You listed off a couple was adding an inclusive list about you about your home about your pets? Yeah.
Speaker 1 12:59
So what I like to see in a really strong profile book is going to be about you as a couple or you as a family, your origin story, what your life looks like, each of you individually, if you're a couple, have, you know your spouse or significant other write a little bit about you, and then your home, your family, pets. And then I really like to see favorite family traditions, whether that's a holiday tradition, or some other tradition in your family, vacations, travel, anything that you are passionate about, that's unique to you, that is gonna create the ability to foster a connection with an expectant parent.
Dawn Davenport 13:53
That goes back to what Aaron was saying, strive to help yourself stand out not to be the same. Exactly, gotcha.
Erin Quick 14:01
The other thing about that Don is a detail really helps with that. I think a lot of people default to using somewhat generic language about like, I
Dawn Davenport 14:11
like to travel. We love pets, we love dogs, things like that. Yeah,
Erin Quick 14:16
that instead of like, I love Golden Retrievers, because my golden retriever growing up was rusty, and he was the best dog ever. And he slept every night on my legs, you know, and it made me feel safe, you know, bring out the thought a little bit more and using more detailed language because you really, I mean, do justice, but you don't know what someone will connect with.
Speaker 1 14:33
And I think it's also really important to include why you are adopting in your profile book. I think it's really important to be very open and honest about why you are growing your family through adoption, so that an expectant mom or expectant parents have that information and know and can kind of see your views on adoption and on how she's going to be honored and respected in your home, you
Dawn Davenport 15:04
know, a question about that. Very often people are coming to adoption, after struggling with infertility, how do you make certain that you're not? First of all, you need to make certain as through having really worked on yourself to know that this is not Plan B, this is not where maybe Plan B, it's not second best. If you have struggled with infertility, how do you make it clear that you are excited about this? This is not this is wasn't your first choice. But you're equally as excited about this? How do you go about that? Just let me start with you. And then Erin, I'd like to get your thoughts because I think many people face this.
Speaker 1 15:42
Yeah, absolutely. If you are coming to adoption through infertility, I think it's really important to be honest about that when you're talking about why you're adopting, because that is an important part of your journey. And I think it's important for expectant parents to know that you are coming to adoption through infertility. But when you're discussing that, you can explain it and talk about adoption in a way that shows that you have done the work in kind of coming to terms or grieving your infertility before pursuing adoption. And that shows in the language that you use, the way that you talk about adoption, the way that you talk about expectant and birth families. And the way that you talk about openness and your views on open adoption in your profile book. Aaron,
Dawn Davenport 16:46
thoughts on that? Yeah, I
Erin Quick 16:48
mean, that was my path. We went through trying to get pregnant, and then three years of infertility and many, many miscarriages. And so I think, to your point, making sure that you get to a point emotionally, mentally, where you realize like this is not a substitute for a biological child. And this is a completely different path to family building that has a completely different set of variables involved in it. And it can be equally as beautiful as any of the family building paths, but it's different. And it requires a different mindset. And then the way that I would explain this, or that we explain this is when we realized that we didn't want to continue to try to create a biological child, what we did realize biological child wasn't as important to us as we had thought. It was like we wanted to be parents. And we had a ton of love to give. And the idea of becoming a parent was so deep in us, like we didn't care about DNA, or RNA or DNA, you know, it was more about like, I have always dreamed of being a parent. And I don't have a preference in terms of how our family is built. That was kind of how we explained it. So I think some soul searching or just some kind of, you know, internal processing that you can verbalize to an expectant mom about your journey is important. And then to Jessica's point, open adoption, I think really doing something about that. Because, you know, obviously, I think it's like 95% of adoptions are now open.
Dawn Davenport 18:12
Should you be very specific about what you mean? Yes, many weeks, we use that stat as well. But the reality is, it's an undefined term. So open this could include once a year sharing of pictures. Yeah, some people consider that openness. So should you include detail for what you actually mean, but at a time when you're not 100%? Sure. Yeah,
Erin Quick 18:34
that is exactly the point. I know, Jess has really strong opinions about, you know, families promising the sun, moon and stars in terms of open adoption when they're not actually comfortable with it. And to your point, like, I had no idea what open adoption really meant when we were trying to adopt. And we have two adoptions. One is an email once a year, and the other one is incredibly open. And both are wonderful. And they, you know, fit the needs of what the birth families want. But I think understanding that there's a spectrum and open adoption and defaulting to almost being more conservative in terms of what you say you're open to at the early onset versus Yes, we'll have every holiday together, and you'll come visit all the time, I think is really important.
Dawn Davenport 19:17
Jess, your thoughts on that?
Speaker 1 19:18
I completely agree. I think it's important to discuss openness broadly in your profile book. But as far as detailing what you're willing to commit to or what you feel like you can commit to isn't the place in your profile, because there's so many other factors that are going to come into play. What an expectant mom wants, what your relationship looks like. And openness is always going to ebb and flow and evolve over time.
Dawn Davenport 19:48
Okay, Aaron, do you encourage people to have a closing we've talked about the sections that generally are included and your agency or your attorney is going to tell you exactly what sections but Do you encourage some type of closing
Erin Quick 20:02
the profile books that we create for families that pear tree, I think typically it's, you know, just as a great job of curating this for families to figure out like what's important to this family. So it's not kind of a cookie cutter formula all the time. Sometimes it's their personality profiles at pear tree in terms of what kind of personality type they are. And other times, it's we just had just created an incredible profile book for a family and they had kind of their life mantra, and what their life mantra meant to them as they're closing. And so I think we don't typically use a cookie cutter. But I'd be curious what just one of you is,
Speaker 1 20:35
I think every profile book needs to have a closing, what that is, can be different. Some families kind of do a second expectant mom or expectant parent letter, and close with a little note, one thing that I really love is kind of a last few things, we want you to know, some promises that they want to make to an expectant parent, or a quote, that's really powerful to them. But I think that there does need to be some type of closing so that your profile book isn't just an abrupt, full stop. And there does need to be some last closing thoughts to an expectant parent looking at your profile book,
Dawn Davenport 21:14
some type of ending so that you're just not left with the hang? Yes, exactly. Okay. In addition to this podcast, creating a family has, of course, a lot of resources on our site, creating a family.org. But we also have a curriculum that can be used for small group interactive training or for support groups. Obviously, everything is geared for foster adoptive and kinship families, you can get more information at parent support groups.org, the curriculum can be used online or in person, we have 25 different curriculum on obviously different topics that are really directly relevant to your training group or your support group. So check it out at parent support groups.org. Alright, let's talk about what I always find the most important thing in most books, and that is the pictures. So just how many pictures should you include? Is there a limit?
Speaker 1 22:11
I say that a 20 page profile book is kind of that sweet spot. That gives you a lot of information that you can present to expectant parents, but it's not overwhelming. And it's long enough to be informative, but short enough to still be engaging. And as many good photos, and I don't say good meaning professional lifestyle, photo shoot, I just mean good photos that honestly and authentically. Show your family and your lives. One thing that I really tried to talk to our families about is showing their family and their life and using photos that show an expectant mom, what their life really looks like, because that's the life that her child could potentially have. And so when you're using Instagram worthy photos, or lifestyle, professional photos, that's not giving an expectant mom an accurate glimpse into your life and potentially the life or child can have. So lots of photos, but lots of good, authentic photos.
Dawn Davenport 23:27
So your iPhone is just fine. Absolutely. I shouldn't say iPhone, I should say your phone. Yes,
Erin Quick 23:34
that's what I was gonna say is the cameras on mobile phones have become so sophisticated. So quality that like you don't need to have professional photos, if you want to license a few professional photos great. But, you know, we'll have families that their whole profile our professional photos from their wedding. like, Ah, this is like one
Dawn Davenport 23:52
day, yeah, one day and time, when do you look your best for sure. What are your thoughts on captions for pictures, Aaron, we do
Erin Quick 24:01
kind of a mix in our profile books, I've photos that have captions, and then just a few spreads that are just photos that kind of need no captions speak for themselves. But I would say with captions, don't use any of the generic language is make sure you're using as much detail as possible. And this is one of those things too. Like if somebody's creating their own book, make sure the captions make sense to people other than you will see captions that are like us at the beach, you know, and like, well, who's us? You know, if there's seven people in the photo, is that like your grandparents and your uncle's best friend who you know that that that kind of detail that helps tell the story. What's the
Dawn Davenport 24:42
status now on including videos. Aaron, is that still considered this obviously is going to be for digital
Erin Quick 24:48
profiles. So I think that's one of the things I don't like about these profile books is that once they're done and printed, it's just their static versus the online profile that can be so much more dynamic. And so that's One of the things that we're working on right now is to be able to incorporate video and audio files into online profiles because it just, there's so much more communicated, and context communicated in a video than there is a photo, one of the things that we encourage our families to do is to record themselves reading their letter to an expectant mom, because again, the tone of voice, the pace, any kind of background noise, it just creates a richer context or that family. And so we're huge proponents of it.
Dawn Davenport 25:30
So just what type of pictures should you avoid overly formalized pictures we've already talked about. But are there other types of pictures that should be avoided, because it could be potentially a turn off,
Speaker 1 25:45
I would recommend avoiding any photos that aren't high quality. And again, not high quality, meaning professional, but super grainy, blurry, they're not going to look great in your online profile. And they're really not going to print Well, when you get your profile book printed. Really old photos, I know including photos of you when you were a kid is really cute. But those photos aren't going to look great printed. And I don't discourage families from using photos that have alcohol in them. I really only discourage it in cover photos. But I worked with a family and they did a lifestyle shoot. And they had one of the cutest photos I've ever seen. One of their big things as a couple was they would cook dinner together every night. And they would always have a glass of wine. So they had one of the cutest photos of him cooking dinner, her sitting at the counter and them sharing a glass of wine. And it was a really great kind of glimpse into something that's really important to them as a family, I will say photos to avoid are anything that is specific or kind of privy to you like when you're doing photos of your home, don't put your address in photos, if you're doing photos don't necessarily do a logo where you work, anything that's going to be a really personal detail just because it's going to be on the internet. And it's going to be sent out to you know, your agency or attorney. And so personal really personal details about where you live and where you work are also photos that I don't like to see in profiles and profile books.
Erin Quick 27:30
If what about photos of a nursery or any of those like no bumps still pumped?
Speaker 1 27:37
I might be the contrarian in this. I don't like including those photos in profile books. Any of those. We're adopting photos, photos of the nursery, the paper pregnant announcements, I don't like those, I think those have a place amongst your friends and family to announce your adoption journey. I don't think that those are photos that an expectant mom needs to see. I think that they can be a little hurtful and disrespectful to expectant parents, because a lot of times I know I certainly was I wasn't excited about my pregnancy. And so seeing those adoption announcements in profile bucks was a little bit hurtful.
Dawn Davenport 28:25
I could see that. Aaron, is there anything different you would suggest for single prospective parents, both male and
Erin Quick 28:32
female. We don't do anything different at pear tree for single parents, it's it's the same advice that we would give
Dawn Davenport 28:39
anything about focusing on, say if you're adopting as a single woman discussing male role models that are active in your life that would be active in your child's life, anything like that, that you would encourage or or not,
Erin Quick 28:52
not that we wouldn't necessarily encourage, I think not in terms of like a male role model. But in terms of support network, I think like extended family, friends, you know, just to show like a, you know, a very robust life, but nothing that I don't think we would recommend differently for single people or older people, you know, some of the groups of people that are often discriminated against in in adoption, you don't have any same
Dawn Davenport 29:14
with LGBTQ plus. Yeah. If you're showing yourself authentically, it seems to me you would be including, if you're two gay dads, if you have women in your life, that are a part of your life, you're going to be including that and that the inference can be made that these will be around and role models.
Erin Quick 29:32
Yeah, I just think I mean, just communicating kind of this rich tapestry of your life is the point of the books, whether single person two people. So
Dawn Davenport 29:40
how do you show family support? When you don't have a close family because of death are estrangement? Just how do you handle that?
Speaker 1 29:50
I think family encompasses so much more than the family you're born into. I think so many people have Towson family. And that matters just as much as your blood relatives. And so maybe you don't do Thanksgiving with your huge extended family for one reason or another, but maybe you do friends giving, and you celebrate with your support network, but your support, people aren't who you're related to, I think that is equally as important and meaningful as having a blood related family.
Dawn Davenport 30:32
Okay. Erin, some of us don't live in Pinterest, our house or Instagram worthy homes or apartments? And or where you live just doesn't show up? Well, doesn't photograph? Well? Are there ways around that? Yeah.
Erin Quick 30:48
I mean, I wasn't like dispel the myth that you have to have one of those places in order to present yourself appropriately in a profile book, I mean, a home as a home as a home as a home. And it's like, you know, I can see the sign in my own home, we grew up in a very small house, very poor, and it was, you know, love makes the home. And so I think, if there's Knucks, in your home that are special to you. Great. And in fact, I actually think it'd be kind of intimidating, because we've seen some, like sprawling yards into these gorgeous homes, presented in books, which is nice. But that's also a little bit intimidating, you know, like, how do you feel when you walk into one of those homes versus walking into a smaller, very cozy place. And so I think it's like, don't think that you have to have a house or Instagram where the home to be presenting? Well, it can be a very small kitchen, where you create delicious meals, or a reading chair that has a blanket that your great aunt made for you. You know, it doesn't have to be sprawling, Architectural Digest cover style.
Dawn Davenport 31:48
Okay, now let's talk about formats. And that's really an area that's changing quite a bit, it feels like you have a lot of options, hardback booklet type, online, stapled, together, whatever. So what format currently, do you see the most? And which ones do you recommend? Eric, I'll direct this to you.
Erin Quick 32:09
Okay, so I actually have a strong point of view about this, I think you need to have an online profile, period, adopting families and expectant parents, they've all grown up with the internet at this point, social media, online, dating all of that everyone's turning to the internet for things that we didn't used to. And so you need to have an online profile. And there are a million places to put an online profile. And so I think the question that adopting families need to ask is, where are the places that are actually getting eyeballs of expectant families? Because there's places that are like, oh, there's a free profile will wonderful if you spend all the time creating a free profile. But if there's no expectant moms viewing your profile, what good is that profile doing in could be a net negative in terms of just giving you false hope? So I think you have to have an online profile. We're seeing like a I created online profiles crop up, you know what I was like, Oh, my gosh, I can't even understand how disrespectful that is to an expectant parent, if the adopting family can't create their own extend the time to think about the answers to these questions and create their own on their profiles. And then I think what we see and what we're really trying to help adoption professionals with is a lot of adoption professionals will host online profiles for their families. But again, if there aren't expectant families coming to those websites, which we're helping a lot of adoption professionals now go through, they're not doing any good. The other thing I will say is there are amazing free tools like Canva that exists for families that don't want to spend the money or can't afford to create a profile book. I do think you're at a deficit position. If you don't have a book that looks good, because if your stapled eight page profile book is next to a beautifully bound profile book. We're humans. And you know, it's like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, like you will be at a deficit position. So this idea of like, no will stand out, and you're like, you have you stand out in a negative sense. You don't have to be a professional designer anymore. And you don't have to spend a ton of money. There are tools like Canva that create templates, and will help you create a beautiful book, if you don't want to have it done elsewhere,
Dawn Davenport 34:11
in Canva, also has a great printing service that could print it and bind it. So it's a one stop shop, and a certain amount of creativity is needed, but not a great deal. I'm a big fan, and I don't have a great deal of creativity. So there you go. We love Canva. So Erin, I'll stick with you have the printed book, how many copies do you need? Obviously, check with your adoption professional. But what are you saying?
Erin Quick 34:38
We typically send families 10 profile books when they are doing their profile books with pear tree. Typically the adoption agencies or attorneys are the ones that are dictating those numbers. But you know, just as an example, and we were doing independent self matching, but I printed profile books and I sent them to all the local hospitals, all the charge nurses I was dropping them off in LA All these places because you just never I was trying to spread the word as wide as I possibly could. So it's, it's up to families, but they're expensive to print. Actually, there's a great printing service. I don't know, just if you want to mention it that we found that inexpensive prints of profile books, large profile books that are helpful for families. Yeah,
Speaker 1 35:16
we use blurb to print all of our profile books, they print, really high quality magazine style. So it's a really thick cover, but it's a soft cover. And you can get them printed for between four and $6. Depending on how long your profile book is.
Dawn Davenport 35:32
That's yeah, that's a great price. Uh huh. All right, justice, I want to direct this obviously to you how important both in your experience as well as in your discussions with other birth moms. How important is the adoptive parent profile in your decision making and other expected parents decision making?
Speaker 1 35:52
I think it's crucial to expectant parents, I think having a well done profile and complete, well rounded profile book, not only can be the difference between an expectant parent reaching out versus them moving on, but I think it also shows them how important this process is to them. I think when you have an incomplete or a thrown together profile or profile book, it's a little disrespectful to expectant parents, it kind of shows that you aren't invested in this journey and this process. So I think when you really put the time and effort and energy into having a well done completed profile that you created, that you didn't, you know, use AI to draft and create. I never thought that AI would enter the adoption world, but it has an families that use. And this is just my opinion, as a birth mom, families that use AI or chat GPT to build their adoption profile. It's such a slap in the face to us, this is the most difficult decision we're ever going to make. And showing us profiles that aren't authentically you that are computer generated is just really disrespectful.
Dawn Davenport 37:36
It's also dishonest. It is yeah. And that's going to come back to bite you.
Erin Quick 37:42
You asked one question about online profiles in terms of because I would say probably the majority of adopting families are building some kind of at least an online profile or some kind of presence online. But I think the thing that's missing from online profiles is the professionals oversight of those profiles online. So a lot of professionals don't have visibility into what their families are doing online. And so like adopting family, like we had an adoption attorney hired, but they didn't have visibility into what I was doing online. And so I think that is one of the things there's a huge opportunity, I think, for families to have online profiles, but have the licensed ethical adoption professional you've hired also had visibility into that to be able to provide you guidance, you know, an expectant mom reaches out how do you handle that? How do you know if it's a scam or not? How do you move it forward? If money starts to be talked? How do you transition that to the adoption professional, but those I think that's a lot of the work that we're working on in PRT right now.
Dawn Davenport 38:36
Yes, that makes sense. Did you know about our free courses that can help you with your parenting? Thanks to our partners, the jockey being Family Foundation, you have a library of 12 courses to choose from. You can check it out at Bitly slash JP F support that's vi t dot L y slash, J B F support. You have stressed the need for showing your authentic self trying to show who you really are in your day to day life. What are your thoughts on candid shots candid photos, as a way of doing that just
Speaker 1 39:15
Oh, I love them. I love any photo that captures a moment that captures a feeling. You absolutely need photos that are both of you looking at the camera, no sunglasses, no hats, things like that. But I love that selfie that you captured after a long hike or a wave that came crashing in the water or playing fetch with your dog in the backyard. I love capturing moments and insights into your life and your story that aren't perfect.
Dawn Davenport 39:57
When Erin said earlier than that she's never cooked a pancake without making a huge mess. And I would say that my husband has never hooked a pancake without burning them a great candid shot would be him holding up the burn pancake, or the messy kitchen or Aaron's kitchen, a perfect pancake, but a lot of mess, you know, that type of thing would be a great shot because it shows who you are. And you know, the other thing that candid shots do is they show the genuine smile. And maybe I speak that way a little because I am not a photogenic person. And I get this weird smile on my face when the cameras pointed at me. And apparently I close my eyes and the weird smile, the eyes closed or quintessential Don, but you get a candid shot of me as a non photogenic person. And it shows who I am. It shows the genuine silliness or smile or something that I think you could only get through candid shots.
Erin Quick 40:50
And I tell people this because it was actually two times the families that chose us, I use the exact same profile photo, and it's me and my husband at a wedding. And I have a horse head over my face, and is holding a hockey stick over his head with like Kanye West sunglasses on, you know, and we never in a million years when we took that picture, did we ever intend to use that as an option. But in terms of explaining kind of our silliness, and our personalities, like it was like, I don't know if there's a better picture that it kind of explains, or that community like shows us us. And I know the birth family for our daughter, she was talking about when she was scrolling through photos. And she used to saw that when she said I found I found
Dawn Davenport 41:40
anybody who would include that pictures there my people. That's a great analogy. And there are there are other ways of showing, not necessarily your silliness. But the essence of who you are on five facts, you wouldn't think about me or something along those lines. Do you ever use any of that just?
Speaker 1 41:58
Yeah, we use random facts I just did one for a great couple in New Jersey. And one of the last pages of their profile book was 10 facts. And it was really unique snippets about them that didn't really have a standalone place in their profile book. But it made a great kind of final last page of their profile book. Another one that I love to do is a timeline, I did a profile book for a family that had a really unique kind of timeline to their story and their journey as a family. And so they did a timeline of big moments and big events in their time.
Dawn Davenport 42:42
Yeah. What about the I don't know if this is still in vogue, but the couples write about each other. It's awkward when you try and write about yourself. And So Aaron, do you encourage some of that to be assuming it's a couple that one of the guys writes about the other one, the other guy writes back, you know, so that they're not having to describe themselves,
Erin Quick 43:04
we almost always include that. And one thing is like, it's just nice to hear somebody else say nice things about you. So it's good for the adopting families, but it is for that exact reason that you know, like you don't want to write, I am so funny. Oh my gosh, I will admit, you know, you won't have to like I've never met a funnier person than Jess.
Dawn Davenport 43:22
Yeah, you really can't say you are funny, you could think it but you really can't say that.
Erin Quick 43:27
Or like I'm so beautiful on the inside yourself. But you're, you're the person can. And we would say if you're a single person, you don't have a partner or spouse, have somebody else write it about you.
Dawn Davenport 43:39
Yeah, I was just gonna say, so what do we say to our single applicants? And yeah, have your best friend. Yeah. Or if your parent is really involved in your life, have parents talk about you. I
Speaker 1 43:50
do for single profile, but I have them give, you know, two or three people that are really important to you kind of write a little paragraph about you or the type of mom they think you're going to be. And that's a whole page in your profile book in it, there's going to be that kind of quote or that little story or snippet with a photo of you and that person and I think it makes it really personal and also really engaging. Hmm.
Dawn Davenport 44:20
Another thing that you sometimes hear is, if you have a connection to adoption in your life, should you be highlighting that and what happens if you don't just I'll direct that to you.
Speaker 1 44:32
I think it is important if that connection is close to you. I've seen families talk about or want to talk about how they have a connection to adoption, but it was their great uncle twice removed, who was adopted or did adopt and at that point, I kind of feel like you're including it Just to include it. But I think if you've adopted before, if your immediate family someone is adopted or has adopted or close friends, I think adoption is really close to you and a part of your daily life or not necessarily daily life, but it has impacted your life in some way that I think it's important to include that. But if it's your Ben's third cousin in law, I don't think that's important to include in your profile. It's
Erin Quick 45:32
important to if you have adoption that's close and close to your, in your family that it's important to communicate it for creating community for this new child, you know, to make sure that adoptees have community but the other thing I think is if you have adoption in your history, even if this is your second adoption, or third adoption, is we had a quote from our son's birth mom that we put in our book because, you know, it's one thing to say like we open adoption, we're we believe in open adoption. It's another thing to have our son's birth mom say they keep their word when it comes to open it up. Yeah,
Dawn Davenport 46:07
that would be strong. And if the relation is distant, your uncle's third cousin twice removed. I think it highlights the fact that you don't have adoption. I mean, if you're having to look that far afield, you should at least be able to find friends and community. It's how I would think. Well, thank you so much, Aaron, quick, and just Nelson for being with us today to talk about how we create a compelling adoptive parent profile. We appreciate your expertise.
Unknown Speaker 46:34
Thanks, Dan, and thank you for having us.
Dawn Davenport 46:37
Thank you. Thank you children's connection. They have been a very long time supporter of this podcast as well as of creating a Family Children's connection is a domestic infant adoption agency and they place children throughout the US and they also do home studies and post adoption support to families and Texas. Thank you children's connection
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