I’m Pregnant
If you're facing an unintended pregnancy or have recently given birth, we're here for you with free and confidential all-options counseling, resources, and support. Call our pregnancy counselors 24/7 at 800-439-0233.
Interview with Meshan Lehmann, LCSW-C, Pregnancy Social Worker at Adoptions Together
The Birthparent Support Alliance launched in 2022, and the response has been incredible. We recently had the opportunity to sit down with Meshan Lehmann, LCSW-C, a pregnancy social worker at Adoptions Together, one of our Birthparent Support Alliance members, to learn more about the work they do, talk about common adoption misconceptions, and have a serious talk about ethics and equity in the adoption landscape.
Do you have a personal connection to adoption?
I personally do not, I got involved in the world of adoption from the avenue of maternal health. My focus in social work school was on maternal and child health, and I knew that I wanted to work with people experiencing pregnancy.
Tell us a little bit about Adoptions Together.
Adoptions Together is a nonprofit licensed child placement agency in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington DC. The agency takes a holistic approach to sustaining, building, and supporting the community. To do this we have a variety of programs to impact families and children with different levels of need. Our child placement programs include an infant adoption program, which is where I work and how we got connected [to On Your Feet Foundation]. We also deliver services to youth residing in public foster care where we match and place school aged children from foster care throughout the country with local and approved adoptive families. We also have a home study program, an education and training program, a counseling program, and a Family Find program. Family Find works with the Department of Social Services, helping children who haven’t been able to reunify with their parents either find connections that haven’t been discovered or reconnect with people who have been in their lives and may be able to provide relational or legal permanency. It’s easy for kids to get lost [to extended family], and then to just stay in the system for a long time, even though there they have family that might not know they are in the foster care system. Adoptions Together is also soon starting a Caribbean program to assist families in bringing relative children to the United States through adoption.