When promoting adoption, first, do no harm

Kathleen Waters has been toiling in the fields of child welfare for more than 28 years.  The first thing she told us when we won the contract to create a public adoption promotion campaign for the State of Florida was:  Please don’t create the impression that we have a lot of healthy babies.  If you create an avalanche of interest in children we don’t have, you are doing us more harm than good.

Wow.  That was a sobering admonition.  Public relations practitioner:  First, do no harm.The challenge we faced was putting a face on public adoption that was realistic (read:  teenagers, sibling groups (some as many as eight!), and children with disabilities and medical conditions like Down Syndrome and AIDS) that was nonetheless positive and inspirational in encouraging Floridians to adopt.Tall order.  Then, we started talking with the people who had actually done this.  After the first few, we concluded that we had met the angels among us – the few, rare, superhuman people who surely had a room in heaven reserved just for them.  Then we met more.  And more.  And more.And we realized that the real, powerful benefits of public adoption captivated and transformed many, many Florida families.  Our campaign became clear:  Clearly portray the children available for adoption and powerfully depict the impact they had on the families that adopted them.  There was no need to gloss over the challenges.  Family by family we heard that the benefits far outweighed the challenges, real as they were.  And the greatest benefit by far was this:  The sense that they had done something important with their lives, that they had made a significant difference.Communications at its best as a discipline is not about spin.  It’s not about glossing over the facts and presenting something fake.  It’s about stripping away the layers and presenting the truth as clearly and compellingly as possible.  The truth tells its own story, given the chance.If our "Explore Adoption" campaign is successful, it won’t generate an avalanche of interest in adoption by the bleary-eyed uninformed.  Rather, it will inspire a handful of average Floridians with eyes wide open to become the latest angels among us and devote their lives to making a difference in the lives of one child…or more.