Topton >> Melanie Rehrig, who supervises the Family Finding and Older Child Matching Imitative efforts at the Topton office of Diakon Adoption & Foster Care, was one of three adoption professionals who recently received the Permanency Teamwork Recognition Award during the annual conference of the Statewide Adoption & Permanency Network.
The three staff members-the others were Gillian Morford of Bethany Christian Services and Melissa Senick of Berks County Children and Youth Services-worked collaboratively to find an adoptive family for a sibling group of six children. In addition, the adoptive family had to be willing to provide continuing opportunities for the children to maintain their relationships with their grandparents.
Rehrig, a permanency supervisor with the adoption and foster care program, received the request for a family and began the search, which eventually led her to Bethany, a Philadelphia-area organization with which a potential family was associated. In addition, Rehrig put in place child-preparation services to begin to ready the older children within the group for possible eventual adoption-while also supporting the grandparents in their decision.
“Through the work and support of Melissa, Melanie and Gillian, a sibling group that represented a placement challenge because of its size and requirements has found their ‘forever home’ while also maintaining continuing and important relationships with their grandparents,” says Joyce Riche, the Diakon Adoption & Foster Care staff member who nominated the group for the statewide award.
Diakon Adoption & Foster Care has been bringing together families and waiting children since the early 1970s. It also has offices in York and Mechanicsburg.
