A Historical Perspective
Adoption Information Services, Inc. grew out of a need for an advocate and guide to assist prospective adoptive families in navigating the complicated and time-consuming process that was adoption. When our director, Marcia Barker, founded AIS in 1990, her desire was to give families hope. She wanted them to have someone to walk alongside of them on their path to adoption. Initially, the primary focus of AIS was on helping families adopt internationally, but as the climate of international adoption changed and became increasingly more difficult, AIS shifted its focus to assisting families with domestic newborn adoption.
In our first 28 years, AIS helped more than 2,700 families adopt babies both internationally and domestically in as little as 3 to 12 months. During this time we developed relationships with many adoption agencies and attorneys across the country, giving our families more choices to suit their individual situations. By gaining an intimate knowledge of the agencies’ adoption procedures, AIS was able to create a stringent pre-qualifying process to enable our clients to quickly and efficiently move through the steps to become home study-approved and ready to accept a match.
Adoption in Today’s World
Adoption has changed a lot in 28 years, but the AIS focus still remains on helping families adopt newborns domestically within 3 to 12 months. Our long-standing relationships with adoption agencies and attorneys across the country, some of whom we have worked with since the beginning, allows our families to connect with trusted sources for placement opportunities. Our process has proven to agencies that our clients are easier to work with, and that allows them to be put ahead of other families who have not had the benefit of our education and support.
Agencies love working with our families because we have taken all of the preliminary steps with them before they ever connect with an agency. We’ve made sure our families’ finances are in order, we’ve assisted them in creating a lifestyle presentation/profile, we’ve connected them with a home study agency to complete the requirements for adoption, and we’ve answered their many questions about the process and how it all works.
We feel honored and privileged that so many families have trusted us over the years to walk with them on their adoption journeys. We are very proud of our ever-growing AIS family, and we hope you will soon be a part of it, too.
Ready to get started on your adoption journey to your special child?