Adoption Center of Illinois

My husband and I had a truly terrible experience with this office. I found the office staff to be very slow and rude. This is particularly true about the Coordinator of Administration (I will not give his/​her name here). That person sat on our files for over a month with absolutely no justification. Richard and Jane both seem as though they have good intentions and are open-​minded. However, they are not the primary people you work with after giving your $ 4000+ deposit. Also, the person who was our liaison to complete our home study, etc. was not at all supportive throughout the entire process. S/​he never once (literally never once) called us to ask how it was going or provide any support. I found the classes to be informative and interesting. But remember — while it is important to like the classes and the director, those are not the most important thing. (You can, for example, take classes elsewhere. Or you can take classes here but go through another agency for your license.) And it is not the directors who you interact with most of the time. My impression is that if in general if you follow exactly their guidelines for domestic adoption then things may go well. But if you want to do something more complicated, such as inter-​state transfer, foster care, or international with a new agency, they will be unprofessional and actually try to get you to switch agencies after paying money. Most importantly they will drag their feet and show NO support for you in your endeavor. Adoption is such an important and wonderful decision. Take your time choosing the right agency.

We used FRC (now Adoption Center of Illinois) as a home study provider to complete an international adoption in 2012. Since the completion of our last home visit post-​placement, I have been torn as to whether to write a review from our experience with them.
For processing our paperwork and for responding to requests for information, they get top marks. Very efficient.
But I am still uncomfortable… years later… about our interaction with their social worker. We take the guardianship of our child very seriously, as adoption is a serious matter, and consider the wellbeing of ALL members of the adoption triad (first family, child, and adoptive family) to be critical, with special respect for the first family and child. These are small things, but I consider them to be important when carried out by a social worker who is supposed to be as protective of first families/​child as they are helpful in investigating adoptive parents suitability for adoption.
When visited by the social worker, she rarely ventured further than the living room/​dining room near the front door. I had to practically insist that she examine the rest of the house (bedrooms on second floor, basement, backyard) that she was writing up for her report, because she expressed «Oh, I’m sure it is fine.» When discussing my worries about the possibility of family separation in the country we were adopting from due to the possibility of incomplete information, she brushed off my worries with, «Oh, you know that the child would be better cared for and have more opportunities over here anyway.» When I pushed back on that perspective which felt, well, American colonialist and disrespectful of our child’s birth country (I didn’t use the word «colonialist» with her), she became curt and defensive.
During pre and post-​placement visits, I felt that her focus and preference was as an advocate for prospective adoptive parents, not for first families or children, and that she was often either oversharing about her own family situation with her adoptive children or brusque with our children (bio and adoptive).
I’m sure that many adoptive parents loved working with her, because her major focus seems to be on their needs and wishes. I was uncomfortable with that focus on what WE (the prospective adoptive parents) wanted because I felt that her role was to also be an advocate for children and first families. This imbalance made me uncomfortable and may make others (not all, obviously) uncomfortable as well.

Eighteen years ago FRC was instrumental in helping us start our family. The whole experience was amazing. Everyone we dealt with was informative, compassionate and concerned with finding good families for the children they place, not just finding us a baby. That is the approach that sets them apart and makes all the difference in the world. They are concerned about all interested parties and continue to offer education and support whenever you need them. Jane recently was instrumental in our daughter’s search for her birthmother. Jane first asked to meet with the three of us to discuss how we all felt about it. When it was obvious we were all ready to move forward, she went to work. We weren’t even halfway home from that meeting when she texted us and told us that she just got off the phone with her birthmom and she that was crying tears of joy. We all were so happy. Our daughter then emailed the birthmom through Jane and the correspondence began. Our daughter eventually gave her birthmom direct access to her by providing her with her cell number and e-​mail address. My first conversation with her was like talking to an old friend. We had met her birthmom before she was born. Many texts and phone conversations went back and forth and then we decided to meet face to face. The day our daughter met her birthmom was a beautiful, clear blue sky day in a park setting and couldn’t have been more perfect. Our daughter has two brother’s who she also met that day. There were happy tears, lots of laughs and lots of sharing. We extended our family that day and now our daughter can build a relationship with her birthmom and siblings.
We are forever grateful to Richard, Pam, Mari Pat and Jane for handling us with special care.

I have so many wonderful things to say about FRC that it’s hard to know where to start! My husband & I felt out the usual suspects in adoption when we began our adoption journey and as soon as we stepped into FRC and met with Richard, Jane and the rest of the wonderful staff, we knew they were the right agency for us. During every step of the process we felt respected and cared for. We found all the classes that we took part in to be useful, thought provoking and very informative.
Since this was our first adoption, much of what we were going through was very new to us and a little bit scary. Having the ability to contact Richard or Jane to ask questions and get objective feedback was amazingly helpful in our decision making. I also have to mention that our social worker, Linda Marder, as well as, our birth mother counselor, Leigh, were just awesome in every way.
I love that even though we adopted our little guy over a year ago FRC is still very much part of our lives. We are looking forward to using them again very soon to (hopefully) expand our family again :)

My husband and I were going through some financial problems and just brought home our one month old daughter. We panicked one night when our gas was cut off and without calling either of our family members or friends, we called Family Resource Center around 10:00 P.M. that night. Mr. Richard Pearlman came to our house around 11:00 P.M.
He left our apartment within an hour with all the surrender papers signed and my newborn baby. He obviously already came prepared with a car seat and all paperwork needed to take my baby.
I asked for my baby back within 48 hours and I was denied. I went to court for a year but lost because of the paperwork we signed that night with no prior counseling.
My life has been destroyed and live with the pain everyday.

My husband and I are not what one would consider «strangers» to adoption. Before finding Family Resource Center (FRC), my husband had gone through the process to adopt our son (born to me biologically) and we went on to adopt our first daughter internationally. That said, we wanted very much to add to our family once again, and we found FRC to be the perfect fit for us.
One of my favorite attributes of FRC is their dedication to the emotional, psychological, and physical welfare of the first (birth) mother (and first father if applicable, of course). As I am an adoptive mom you’ll have to take this with a grain of salt, but I truly believe that FRC offers a pressure-​free space in which pregnant women are able to explore the adoption option without the «hard sell». Additionally, FRC offers ongoing counseling to first moms for as long as necessary. These elements were ones which we considered to be vital in our agency selection.
Having an amazing social worker can, in my humble opinion, make or break the adoption experience for anyone (first or adoptive parents, that is). We had the privilege of working with Gail McGraw and we found her to be professional, thorough, considerate, and easy to contact (and that’s a biggie if you’ve ever tried to navigate your way through a home study!). Also, she’s been in the industry for quite some time and has as much heart and soul as someone fresh out of school.
We also spoke with Richard Pearlman, the director of FRC, several times during the adoption of our youngest daughter. I found this to be impressive; I can’t think of any other agency in which the director contacts every.single.adoptive.family prior to a placement to introduce himself, get to know the prospective adoptive family, and discuss both the agency itself and the adoption process as a whole. When we had a concern arise, Richard spent several hours on the phone with me – while he was out of the state, mind you – and worked to resolve the situation to the best of his ability.
In short, I strongly recommend FRC. We couldn’t be more blessed – not only by the inclusion of our «littlest» one to our family, but also due to the amazing extended family we’ve gained through her open adoption. If you’re contemplating adoption but overwhelmed by the agency choices, look no further. You won’t find better than Family Resource Center, truly.

I have been meaning to write this review for sometime, but my time has been more limited with a baby in the house (finally!). I wholeheartedly recommend FRC. If you are looking to adopt or considering placing your child for adoption, I encourage you to reach out to FRC to see if it is a good fit for you.
FRC’s philosophy is that they offer guidance, but the choices surrounding the adoption process are yours to make. They don’t tell you how things MUST go — they don’t have a lot of rules, and they don’t put a bunch of unnecessary obstacles in front of you. As an adoptive parent, I felt that the staff and counselors were responsive, helpful, empathic, and good at both listening and giving us advice. Our situation was tough at the end, and honestly, we couldn’t have gotten thru it without the folks at FRC.
I also know that our birth mother felt supported. She was a little reluctant to work with an agency at first, just because she thought an agency would be bureaucratic and impersonal. FRC is totally the opposite. They provided her with support and an ear, without trying to act bossy and controlling.
We did not start with FRC, but at a larger, more «famous» agency, and were totally disappointed. I only wish we had found FRC sooner, because we have been so happy with the result.

When my wife and I chose to adopt last August we began to interview different agencies, attorneys, referral services, etc. The first agency we went to was FRC. At the FRC informational session we attended, the Director, Richard Pearlman, started off by saying that FRC is not there to find you a baby. Rather, they are there to find a child a family. That basic concept resonated with us. Although I still think that the other agencies we interviewed in Chicagoland (the cradle and center for family building) all quite reputable and do somethings very well… we just felt most comfortable with the FRC Mission.
By the way, we also spoke to referral agencies who said the opposite. They were there to find us a baby. One referral agency referred to themselves as the «Cadillac of adoption.» They boasted about their low change of heart rate. It seemed like they had employees (no social workers on staff) whose job was to convince the expectant mom to go through with her adoption plan.
FRC (and the cradle and center for family building) is not like that. They are there to make the adoption process a good one for the adoptive family, the birth family, and the children.
Briefly about FRC: The Executive Director Richard Pearlman and the Associate Director Jane Turner are both very special people. They are truly available 24 hours a day to answer your questions/​concerns. They provide an absolutely incredible amount of support. The interesting thing about Richard and Jane is that they have an open dialog that does not alway match up. Meaning… they have differing opinions on subjects/​situations. The different opinions allows the adoptive family to work through the issues considering more than one opinion.