Northwest Heart Gallery Launches March 2010

A Family For Every Child announced the availability of the Northwest Heart Gallery site starting March 2010. The Northwest Heart Gallery website, designed to serve waiting children from the Northwest states of Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Idaho, and Montana, is intended to fill the gaps in the Heart Galleries currently serving those areas. Washington and Alaska do not have Heart Galleries at present, and Lane County's Heart Gallery has been displaying kids from Washington.

The Northwest Heart Gallery site is also designed to serve families who would like to adopt by providing them the ability to present photo-listings of their narratives. The photo listings, which can be produced in any of 6 different formats, can provide the child's case workers with a glimpse of what life is like in those families so as to assure a good match between the child's needs and the families. Family photo listings include a family profile, narrative, and the capability to present a video about the family.

Families have the capability to upload the pictures, narrative, and video interactively from any computer attached to the internet. "It should be as easy as 1-2-3", says Scott Corcoran, the web programmer who developed most of the system, as he explains, "we intend to serve four groups of users: waiting children, families who want to adopt, the waiting children's case workers, and adoption agencies. We hope to provide a vehicle by which case workers can find homes for waiting children."

After the family starts the home study process, they can register their interest in children waiting for adoption at the Northwest Heart Gallery, or just register themselves as seeking to adopt. After the home study is complete, it can be made available by using the system to case workers who request the study from A Family For Every Child. Case workers can login and search the database of families to find those families most suitable using a large variety of criteria, including location, children in the home, and ability to meet the child's special needs.

For further information about using this system, please contact Christy Obie-Barrett at (541)-954-9626, or CBObie@aol.com