By David Myers

Southwest Kansas Register

Gone are the days when medical staff spirits away an adopted newborn before the birth-mother has a chance even to set eyes on the child, according to Debbie Snapp, Program Director for Catholic Social Service (CSS), which is celebrating 40 years of service in the Diocese of Dodge City.

Adoption has changed over the years, and no one knows this better than the staff of CSS. In the last four decades, the organization has joined more than 600 local children with adoptive parents.

Although CSS has served the diocese’s most needy in several capacities over the years – refugee services, spousal and child abuse prevention, and alcoholism counseling, to name a few — their main focus has always been child welfare services: adoption, pregnancy counseling, and foster care.

"In the old days, the doctor would take the baby," Snapp said. "The birth parents would have no idea where the child was going. It’s a terrible thing not to know where your child is going, or if they’re well."

CSS advocates the "open adoption" method, in which birth parents maintain an open relationship with the adoptive parents and child throughout the child’s life. Snapp said that the process removes a lot of the fear for all parties.

Because birth parents must sign a legally binding release form, it "takes away the fear for adoptive parents that the birth parents may try to take their baby back," Snapp said. For the adopted child, "it takes away that fantasy of what it would have been like to be raised by their birth family."

Prior to the adoption, both parties must attend an extensive workshop detailing the open adoption method. Snapp said that often those with the strongest concerns come away from the workshop unable to "see doing it any other way."

For children who were adopted before the implementation of open adoptions, CSS will, if requested, conduct a "search and reunion."

"What we’ve experienced is that when kids are seniors in high school, they want to send an invitation to their birth parents to attend their graduation," Snapp explained. "Sometimes the first letter that birth-parents will receive about that child will be an invitation to their graduation."

As reported in Tim Wenzl’s diocesan history, "A Legacy of Faith," CSS was incorporated into the Diocese of Dodge City in 1965 by Bishop Marion F. Forst "to engage in organized charitable welfare and social service work … for the promotion of the physical, mental, and moral betterment of all persons."

"There are few dioceses in the 48 contiguous states which have had as good a history in the area of social services as we have had, considering our size," Bishop Forst said.

Among the needs identified by Bishop Forst were respect life programs, income maintenance, the aged, child-care, people with disabilities, and housing. CSS would go on to include refugee services, alcoholism counseling, children and spousal abuse prevention, and others.

While Snapp, who has been with the organization since 1987, said she would like CSS to one day again be able to address these different issues, it was budgetary concerns that led the department to focus entirely on child welfare, and it will be funding that allows them to expand. CSS currently has three offices – in Dodge City, Great Bend, and Garden City – with a total of seven employees addressing all the child welfare issues across southwest Kansas.

CSS is funded in part through diocesan collections, the United Way, fees and foster care programs, fund-raising efforts such as the annual wine tasting event, charitable donations, and through state and federal grants, the latter of which often means the difference when it comes to hiring, or proceeding with a particular program.

Despite being under a constant budgetary crunch, one of CSS’s goals is to make it easier financially for lower-income families to adopt.

"We’ve always maintained that we have good people in southwest Kansas who would make good families," Snapp said. "We want to help develop their opportunity to adopt. We go out and look for funding sources. We’re also an advocate for adoptive parents in seeking grants. And we let them know what kind of tax credit support there is."

CSS currently has approximately 26 special needs children in foster care homes. The office is always looking for more families willing to temporarily offer a loving home to a child as he or she awaits an adoptive family. Several foster care families have gone on to adopt the child.

"There could be a physical disability or emotional problem," Snapp said. "The ‘special needs’ may be from the fact that they were abused or neglected. Or they may have a learning disability that may make it difficult for them to be selected for adoption."

Another CSS foster care program includes six children with more severe needs.

"These are children with serious difficulties," Snapp said. "They may have a feeding tube, are nonverbal, or are in a wheelchair. It makes them extremely challenging to care for."

The foster families who have taken these children in "are the most amazing we have ever met," Snapp added. "They absolutely love them as if they were born to them."

Youth without a foster home or adoptive family may stay in residential facilities, such as Youthville in Dodge City, until they are adopted, or turn 18.

While there are no infants currently in need of an adoptive home in the diocese, the specter of not having adoptive parents available when the need arises is ever present. CSS is always on the lookout for adoptive families for birth-infants.

CSS has initiated several programs in the diocese, including "Teen Moms." Amy Falcon, a case manager and social worker with CSS, implemented the program in response to Ford, Finney and Seward counties being among the top five counties in Kansas for incidences of teen pregnancy.

Almost 15 percent of all births in the United States come from teenage mothers, some as young as 13. Of these, more than 25 percent will have a second child within two years.

Free and open to new mothers ages 13-23, participants meet once a week in Dodge City where volunteers will teach subjects ranging from parenting to budgeting, to career guidance, college careers, and crafts. Each participant is assigned a mentor – an older woman with one or more children who acts as a sort of big sister, someone to turn to when they need a friend.

According to Falcon, the program is designed to help the participant in five distinct areas: as a parent, a teen, a student, a wage earner, and, in keeping with the mission of Catholic Social Service, a "person in need of Jesus."

For more information about Teen Moms, call Amy Falcon at (620) 227-1590, or 1-800-794-9756. For information about adoption, search and reunion, pregnancy counseling, or foster care, call the CSS office in Dodge City at (620) 227-1588; in Great Bend at (620) 792-1393; or in Garden City at (620) 272-0010.