I am updating and altering this review to ensure people receive a clear, honest picture of the kind of agency Adoption Options truly is. I believe transparency matters—especially when decisions of this magnitude are involved. Seven years ago, I made the incredibly difficult and selfless decision to place my daughter for adoption. I am profoundly grateful for my daughter’s adoptive parents—but my experience with this agency was deeply troubling, unethical, and emotionally damaging. When I was five months pregnant and facing serious health and personal challenges, I reached out through an online form seeking guidance. An adoption advocate responded quickly and connected me with a couple who would ultimately become my daughter’s adoptive parents. Thankfully, I met them before being fully absorbed into the agency’s process, because they were the ones who provided genuine compassion and support—something the agency itself failed to do. Due to Colorado requirements, however, I was still required to work through the agency. It is important to be honest and clear: I did experience a relapse very early in my pregnancy. It was brief, I was not continuously using, and I stopped early on. I did not actively use substances throughout my pregnancy, and my daughter was born healthy and clean. Despite this, the agency later used my past and this early relapse as leverage, misrepresenting the situation in ways that were both harmful and unethical. My assigned case manager was inattentive, overwhelmed, and appeared far more focused on financial outcomes than on my well-being. She repeatedly attempted to dissuade me from choosing the adoptive parents I had already connected with, pushing me toward families within the agency’s internal network. Most disturbingly, the agency attempted to convince my daughter’s adoptive parents to choose another birth mother by telling them my child would be born sick and addicted to drugs—claims that were entirely untrue and medically unfounded. Additionally, any time my daughter’s adoptive parents tried to reach out to me—whether through calls, texts, or gestures like sending flowers—the agency actively discouraged it. They appeared deeply uncomfortable with how open, respectful, and human our relationship was. Their version of an “open adoption” prioritized control over connection, limiting communication to managed channels and discouraging authentic bonds. Despite this pressure, my daughter’s adoptive parents consistently chose empathy and transparency. To this day, I remain in contact with her mother, and my daughter is being raised knowing who I am and where she comes from. I firmly believe this would not have been possible had I not met her parents prior to being assigned to this agency. After the adoption, the post-placement support that was promised was virtually nonexistent. During an incredibly vulnerable period, I felt abandoned by an organization that claimed to provide care. Friends raised concerns about my mental health at the time, yet no meaningful outreach or support was offered. I have no regrets about placing my daughter with the loving parents she has today. I do, however, deeply regret involving an agency that prioritized profit, control, and optics over honesty, dignity, and the long-term well-being of birth mothers and children. Please take this as a sincere warning. Agencies entrusted with such life-altering decisions should support and protect—not manipulate, misrepresent, or silence the people they claim to serve.

A Profoundly Disheartening Experience with Adoption Options If I could give zero stars, I would. Our experience with Adoption Options was not just disappointing—it was actively harmful, both to our foster child (FC) and to us as foster parents. Their negligence, lack of communication, and outright abandonment at critical moments make them an agency that should be avoided by any prospective foster family seeking support and advocacy. 1. They simply stopped communicating with us. When FC was placed in residential treatment, we received no guidance on what came next. No check-ins. No explanations. Our caseworker vanished for nine months, leaving us completely in the dark. 2. We received no training or support for over a year. The agency failed to provide even the most basic resources necessary to help us navigate the challenges of fostering. 3. They did nothing to advocate for FC’s return to our care. When FC was set to discharge from treatment, the agency made no effort to ensure a stable transition back to our home. 4. They undermined us as foster parents. When we requested crucial services to meet FC’s significant needs, the agency allowed FC’s team to frame this as a lack of commitment—rather than a responsible and necessary step to ensure her safety and well-being. Our caseworker initially agreed that FC shouldn’t return without those services. Then, within a week, she reversed her stance and joined in saying we weren’t committed. 5. They encouraged us to disrupt placement. After a severe and dangerous incident, we were given two options: leave FC in the hospital and disrupt placement, or bring her home to an unsafe environment. The agency explicitly counseled us to give notice, and then later misrepresented that fact. 6. They offered zero post-disruption support. No follow-up. No counseling. No outreach. No “we’re here for you when you’re ready.” Just silence. 7. They took FC’s team’s side against us—even when hospitals and facilities were calling us for help. When FC’s team failed to respond to urgent needs (such as medication management), hospitals contacted us instead. The agency did nothing to address these failures. 8. They misled us into a grievance process they refused to follow. When we voiced concerns about our treatment, they directed us to a grievance procedure—only to then ignore it entirely. 9. They agreed to transfer our license—then closed it instead. This not only caused unnecessary complications but also wasted time and effort for both us and our new licensing agency. 10. They provided an unprofessional, inaccurate version of events. When asked to provide information for our homestudy, they outright misrepresented the facts, falsely claiming that we had improperly given notice—when, in reality, we had done exactly what they instructed us to do. We Are Not Alone Our experience, unfortunately, is not unique. Other reviews also indicate similar patterns of behavior by Adoption Options. For instance, a reviewer on Yelp shared that the agency failed to perform their duties during the adoption process and exacerbated the harm caused by the child’s team.  Final Thoughts Fostering is challenging enough without an agency that actively works against the foster parents and fails the children they are supposed to serve. If you are considering working with Adoption Options, ask yourself: what happens when you need them the most? Because when we did, they were nowhere to be found. 

Adoption Options (AO) borders on malpractice and treated us like a transaction, not a family with a working relationship with them. We joined AO's "Flexible Families" program. Program director is Courtney. We took emergency placement of a 10 yr. old girl. Courtney knew child when she was at a residential placement and child was previously in a different AO home! Her team minimized needs when presenting her to us. Child's level of calculated violence is extreme even for this population; often becomes criminal assault level. AO was in a position to share needs and missed several opportunities to share/advocate the team share more.Child ended up going on M1 holds and was in a series long term higher level placements to try and resolve this. Regardless of how much we remained involved during treatment her team often overlooked our ongoing involvement instead resorting to coercion and threats to us about discharging her early from programs to come home. Here are some ways the AO team failed to do their jobs: 1. As child’s team repeatedly threatened us/child’s placement, our caseworker never intervened. 2. AO did not advocate for us to receive a child family study to get more info on this child. It should happen before placement. Ours didn’t happen until child had been in our home for nearly 5 months 3. Treatment was long; we stayed involved with weekly visits, therapy, calls, special occasions and more. Team repeatedly questioned our “commitment” despite this. AO caseworker did not advocate for us. Instead, she ALSO questioned our commitment. In response to us talking about the damaging relationship with the team, Courtney told us to consider severing ties with the child rather than rebuilding trust with the team. 4. We were not offered any support, training, or education from 2023 until mid 2024. 5. Child completed treatment program; came home. Sadly, she demonstrated a need to assault once home; violence was severe. (We sustained injuries. Furniture was shattered. Etc.) We reached out for help and support and received none, for days. We finally called 911. Child’s team stonewalled us once this happened, over a day. AO did not help us get in touch with them. They counseled us to discharge child from hospital (with no safety plan, and having heard that the clinician there did not want to send her home). When we said we needed contact from team and had spent hours trying to get in touch, she counseled us to “put in our notice” (stop parenting her) 6. After child did not come home AO offered no support with hospital and facility asking us for help with child’s needs (because the team was not picking up the phone!), no help in understanding what happens to her personal items in our home, nothing about “what next.” 7. We contacted team to get child’s things. Team said inappropriate and inaccurate things about us in an email with AO caseworker included. Caseworker said nothing helpful. 8. We asked to transfer our license. Caseworker agreed. Instead, AO CLOSED our license necessitating we go through a complete homestudy and training again. We paid for our homestudy with this agency! 9. The information that AO did send to our new licensing body was inaccurate in at least three ways. 10. I submitted a grievance—according to their policy, they have 30 days to respond. On day 31, they told me they needed more time. Then they told me they had no other responses. They don’t even follow their own grievance procedures. They refuse to do anything to help us after denying us the things we paid for and denied us the chance to transfer our license. They're harmful to families trying to foster older children with needs (hint: almost all older children will have significant needs!). *Update: they provided a negative, selective, context-free reference to our new homestudy stating issues with us as a family. Upon my concern about this, they accused me of "defaming" them, told me all fingers point to me as the problem, and called me "small" and petty. If this doesn't demonstrate the lack of professionalism, I don't know what does.