The adoption process, Facebook, and social networking
As a volunteer for a local Kansas City adoption agency, my caseworker supervisor has been training me to assist her as a “child scout”; connecting children with people who wish to adopt. Based upon the family and individual requirements (some are potential single parents), I search upon national websites, like AdoptUSKids to help connect “forever families” with children seeking homes. Some of our adopting parents feel comfortable searching on their own on these valuable sites.
Many people need assistance, uncomfortable with computers, and it is always nice to have an extra set of helpful eyes. Our adoption agency has a Facebook page and we use it, along with Twitter and our “.org” site to connect with fellow caseworkers, families who have already adopted, as well as those wishing to donate time, talent or treasure. Yet with all these tools, we try to stay focused upon our core services of shepherding families through the process. Our agency’s mission is to identify and assist families who wish to adopt American children via the myriad State systems.
Like all not-for-profits, we are always seeking charitable people to donate. Today, it occurred to me that Facebook could revolutionize our present fragmented process with their powerful and sophisticated social networking platform. Modifications are necessary to accommodate our requirements for privacy, security and the differing State Laws, however the idea seems workable in light of the fact that Facebook is constantly seeking ways to market their services to businesses world-wide.
Presently, given the many State and private databases, I prepare search documents in MSWord, tables that are the result of “screen-scraping” data from the websites; tedious but crucial and much appreciated by adopting people with whom we work. But, what if we had a national “Facebook-like” platform to help fuse all of this information and share it? For the techies out there, yes this begins with a comprehensive “requirements document” to explain what everyone needs.
What if Facebook donated some of their time, talent, and treasure to this human endeavor?
Today, I spoke with a developer in Seattle at AdoptUSKids…we schemed and dreamed about this…
Mark Zukerberg…can we talk about this?
Google+
Share
Tweet
Comments
No comments have been posted. Perhaps you'd like to be the first?