Small World wasn’t our first option, but through them God gave us our son; so, we are grateful.
Respect-
It’s a small agency; so, we expected a better relationship. Instead we felt like an after-thought throughout the entire process. From the time we decided to move forward with the adoption, to after we brought our son home, we felt as all the emphasis was put on the birth mom and no attention to our questions, needs, or desires. We didn’t even have a direct number to call our social worker until we flew down to meet the birth mom. We’d email and wait days for a response, sometimes over a week or more. After we brought our son home, 8 months passed before we finalized and NOT ONCE did Small World call or initiate contact with us to check on how we were doing. We couldn’t get answers about a birth certificate, SSN, or the attorney with whom we’d go to court. We’d get what felt like blanket statements: “we’ll tell you when that time comes,” or “ you’ll get it later.” This was disappointing because the process was new to us as well. It was rude. They trusted us enough to give us a child but not enough to give us information. With the amount of money we gave them, we only wanted to be treated with respect, and didn’t feel it.
Cost/Money-
We expected the process to be costly. We planned for it; however, with Small World, we just felt like a bank giving money, when they asked…and the way our spending account was used was never clearly communicated to us. The contract that we signed stated we’d be returned that money. When we questioned it, we were just told “it’s spent.” There was no invoice to show the money being spent. The social worker would always direct us to “accounting” when we asked. It took months before I realized that “accounting” is one person, who works one day a week, for half a day (what I was told, by the receptionist). “Accounting,“ who is NOT AT ALL responsive, manages all the money in 1/2 a day’s work. They make no effort to be transparent with the money…At least not with us.
Recommendation-
We wouldn’t recommend them. For a smaller agency, their customer service (especially in a field such as this), should be exceptional - for both birth mom AND adoptive parents. Unfortunately, we got the short end this time. Although we were only with Nightlight Christian for a short amount of time, we’d recommend them any time. Even for a large agency, Nightlight made us feel like we were their only clients.