North Home's Inc. Adoption program was first licensed in 1996. Long time Board Member Peg Landin, with the encouragement of Jim Christmas began to explore the possibility of expanding NHI’s foster care licensure to include adoption services. Through her own experience with adoption, she saw there were no adoption agencies serving families living more than 100 miles from the Twin Cities. Peg resigned from the board and became NHI’s first Adoption Program Director. Within the first days of being licensed she was doing her first home study and three months later North Homes placed their first infant with a local family.

About the same time, the State of Minnesota created the Public/Private Adoption Initiative (PPAI) in an effort to assist with the adoptions of children who were under the guardianship of Minnesota’s Commissioner of Human Services. Peggy wrote the first PPAI grant proposal for NHI, and our agency became one of only 11 agencies given the opportunity to assist with the adoption of Minnesota’s Waiting Children. This initiative made it possible for families to adopt at no cost, and for children to be matched with loving parents. Financial assistance, in the form of adoption subsidies also became available to these families. Now more than ten years later, this program continues to thrive and financially helps adoptive families with the legal, medical and living costs associated with caring for their children.

In 2001, Peggy chose to leave NHI to build and manage Buckhorn Resort, to help her husband with his log home business, and to be more available to their two young children.  She continues to stay connected with our Adoption Department, and is once again on the NHI Board of Directors.

North Homes, Inc. Adoption Services has developed a reputation for placing and maintaining hard-to-place special needs children, and was nominated by Congressman James Oberstar as a 2007 Angels in Adoption Award™ for our outstanding advocacy of adoption.  This National Congressional Award was an especially great honor, particularly when social workers were reluctant to work with our agency when NHI first began offering adoption services.  They felt that rural northern Minnesota lacked the availability of services the children might need.

Several factors attribute to the success of the adoption program.  NHI has a dedicated staff that provides ongoing support and guidance to their adoptive families by offering both traditional and innovative support services.  Two separate adoption support groups are provided bi-monthly, one for parents and one for adopted and/or pre-adopted teens, as well as a well attended family summer barbecue and winter celebration.  In addition, we are able to utilize our agency’s larger continuum of care, including such services as in-home child therapeutic support services, diagnostic assessments, foster care/respite and residential treatment.

Recently there have been changes in the Adoption Services staff.  Our staff includes:

·         Carmen Haugen, LSW, has been employed by NHI as an Adoption Social Worker since 1998 and has placed 119 children in adoptive homes and is currently the Director of Adoption.  Her previous experience includes Certified Chemical Dependency Counselor with 20 years of social work experience, including case management, group therapy and counseling.

·         Holly Guyer began working part-time for NHI in the fall of 2001, as the adoption support staff.  She and her brother were both adopted as infants and feels she has come “full circle.”

·         Mary Jo Wimmer has been an Adoption Case Worker for NHI since 1998, and has placed 138 children with adoptive families.  She has four adopted children, three of whom were Minnesota Waiting Children.  With our regrets, she will be resigning from her position in December.

·         Michelle Anderson, LSW, began working as an Adoption Social Worker for NHI in the fall of 2005, placing 18 children in adoptive homes.  Michelle has recently resigned to stay at home with her young family.  She and her husband are parents of five children, four of whom are adopted.

·         Karen Bissonette has been our lifebook coordinator since August of 2007.  Adoptive lifebooks, a service provided by the PPAI; are a collection of words, photos, graphics, artwork and memorabilia that creates a life record for a child who has been adopted.

·         Erin Miller, LSW, has been employed with NHI since 2007.  She has worked in the Foster Care Program and as a Family Assessment Coordinator.  We look forward to her joining us in December, as an Adoption Social Worker.  She brings with her experience working with adoptive families at Itasca County.