Does Your Company Have What it Takes to Make the Dave Thomas Foundation’s Second Annual Top 100 Adoption-Friendly Workplaces List?
(Dublin, OH – November 1, 2007) If your company provides adoption benefits, the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption wants to know about it. The Foundation is asking organizations across America to participate in its second annual Best Adoption-Friendly Workplaces in America survey. Deadline for entry is January 15, 2008, and a list of the nation’s top 100 companies will be released May 1.
“We were delighted to see the flood of positive recognition the country’s best adoption-friendly workplaces generated last year,” said Rita Soronen, executive director of the Foundation. “Already, we have heard from companies who are changing and improving their adoption benefits this year because of last year’s list. Citizens Financial Group in Providence, Rhode Island earned the number one spot in 2007 because the company offers financial assistance far and away above most companies—up to $20,960 per adoption, compared to an average $4,000 to $10,000.”
The Best Adoption Friendly Workplaces list is determined by an analysis of a company’s adoption benefits, such as the amount of financial reimbursement and paid leave available to employees who adopt – without regard to company size. The top 100 employers are then ranked based on the robustness of their adoption benefits. The top ten by organization size, as well as leaders in each industry will also be celebrated, and special recognition will be given to companies who support the cause of adoption and adoptive families in other ways.
Human resource executives and employees at companies with adoption benefits are encouraged to take the two-minute survey at
www.AdoptionFriendlyWorkplace.org. In addition to online participants, 30,000 people from small, medium, and large employers will be invited to participate via postal mail.
Soronen said more than 150,000 foster care children are available for adoption in North America – 114,000 of them in the United States. “Most of these children will spend nearly four years in the foster care system before they are adopted. We’re hopeful the second annual Best Adoption-Friendly Workplaces List will again heighten the awareness of adoption and the companies that help make the process even easier,” she added.
The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption is a non-profit public charity dedicated to dramatically increasing the number of adoptions of foster care children in North America. Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy’s and an adopted child, created the Foundation in 1992 in support of the vision that every child needs a permanent home and a loving family. The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption focuses on increasing foster care adoption awareness while supporting model adoption service programs and is committed to ensuring that adoption from the foster care system in streamlined, affordable and accessible to any family wanting to adopt.
Contact:
Rita Soronen, Executive Director
Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption
1-800-ASK-DTFA
rita_soronen@wendys.com