Have you noticed that people often think in terms of us and them? We are good at what we do, and they aren’t so very competent. We are open-minded, and they aren’t.

There were some early professional lessons that I had to unlearn. The us vs them frame of mind was something my colleagues started teaching me on my first job. That was a long time ago, but the lesson is still being taught in offices every work day.

When I began in the juvenile court system attorneys were the identified enemy. Maybe today there is a different enemy. But human nature being what it is, I’m pretty sure for corrections officers there is still a them.

In adoption work I’ve discovered that they are likely to be the bureaucrats or the legislators or sometimes workers or judges in another agency or another state. They are slow, their work is not thorough. And so on.

As a probation officer, I had lots of authority but absolutely no access to money. That (and a judge who told me to buy donuts and invite agency representatives for coffee) taught me to collaborate. It’s difficult to assign someone the classification of they after you’ve eaten donuts and drunk coffee together. And if you need to do a job and have no money to do it, you’re smart to learn to work with them.

At The Adoption Exchange we don’t do anything alone. We believe the children belong to all of us. And we each have a role to play if we’re going to give the children opportunities to grow up in permanent families.


I would like to invite you to share in a special celebration as we Count Up to the collaborative success of helping to connect 6,000 children with adoptive families.

Each adoption placement is the result of a collaborative team of social workers, adoption professionals, adoptive families, staff, volunteers, advocates and supporters. Learn more about this special milestone.

There really isn’t any them. It’s just us.


______________________________________________________


Learn more about Dixie.

Tags: Adopting, Adoption Celebration, Adoption Lives Transformed, Adoption Stories, Children's Charities, Children's Gallery, Colorado Adoption, Dixie van de Flier, Heart Gallery, Missouri Adoption, Nevada Adoption, New Mexico Adoption, Oklahoma Adoption, South Dakota Adoption, The Adoption Exchange, Utah Adoption, Wyoming Adoption