About The Adoption Center of Delaware Valley

About ACDV

What is the Adoption Center of Delaware Valley (ACDV)?

The Center, created in 1972, is a non-profit organization that expands adoption opportunities for children with special needs and those from minority cultures. These children are not the healthy infants usually associated with adoption. Most are older; many have physical, emotional and/or mental challenges. Others are siblings who need to be adopted together. The majority are African American. They live in foster or group homes while they wait for families to adopt them.

The Center is funded through grants from foundations and corporations, government contracts, and through individual contributions. Special events raise additional funds to benefit the Center's programs.

The Center is not an adoption agency. It does not have children in its care, but works with both public and private adoption agencies that have custody of children.

What Services Does the Center Provide?

Information and Referral
Registration
Matching
Recruitment
Match Parties

Information and Referral: Intake coordinators respond to calls, emails, and letters from prospective adoptive parents. Families Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware interested in adopting children with special needs or African American children receive a preliminary application form and are referred to a local adoption agency for a homestudy (the process by which a family is approved to adopt).

Registration: The Adoption Center of Delaware Valley maintains a computerized database listing the names and descriptions of available children and approved families from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware.

Matching: Adoption coordinators search the database to identify families that have expressed an interest in adopting available children. Among the areas considered in matching a child with a family are: the child's age, gender, race or ethnicity, sibling status and type of disability. Suggested matches are sent to the child's social worker, the family's social worker and to the family for approval.

Recruitment: When there are no matches available for children, the Center conducts an extensive recruitment program to encourage families to adopt. Working closely with the media, the Center maintains regular waiting child features -- "Monday's Child" in The Philadelphia Inquirer and "Tuesday's Child" in The Philadelphia Tribune -- along with weekly public service announcements on WDAS radio. It also provides adoption-related information for magazines and newspaper features.