The Adoption Clinic is an interdisciplinary clinic that offers services for families who are preparing to adopt and for families who have already adopted. The clinic was founded by Jennifer Chambers, M.D., associate professor in the Division of Academic General Pediatrics, in 2002 shortly after completing her pediatric residency. On Sunday, Oct. 2, 2022, over 200 guests came together to commemorate 20th year of helping adoptive families with a pumpkin patch celebration at the Helena Hollow Entertainment Farm. Guests received goodie bags, t-shirts, sweet treats, educational handouts, and even got to take home pumpkins to carve. The clinic also shared the top 20 book recommendations that are available to purchase on Amazon.

“We enjoyed seeing old and new familiar faces that have been a part of our clinic over the years,” said Dr. Chambers. “We are proud to have provided various services for adoptive families for the past 20 years including- interdisciplinary clinic appointments, pre-adoption medical reviews, travel education and prescriptions, phone consultations, telehealth appointments, sleep consultations, educational seminars and advocacy efforts both nationally and internationally.”

The clinic’s name was recently changed from the International Adoption Clinic to the Adoption Clinic, to reflect that the clinic offers services for domestically and internationally adopted children and their families. The clinic has helped children from over 50 countries on six continents.  

During the clinic’s interdisciplinary appointments, children receive occupational therapy/developmental assessments that evaluate development, feeding, sensory issues and learning differences; family therapy assessments that offer emotional regulation and parenting techniques; and pediatric medical evaluations which include infectious disease work-up, vaccination recommendations, nutritional oversight, case management for complex medical special needs, and more.

When clinic physicians are not helping adoptive families and children at the Adoption Clinic, you can find them seeing patients and teaching in the newborn nursery at UAB, helping out in the newborn follow up clinic at UAB, or at a conference providing education on various adoption related issues. Recently, Dr. Chambers held a virtual information session with the social workers throughout the US and Carin Kiser, M.D., associate professor in the Division of Academic General Pediatrics, presented to healthcare providers at the P.A.T.H.S. conference to discuss the different psychosocial/medical issues that affect adopted children. 

The Adoption Clinic sees patients every Wednesday at our Children’s South location off Acton Road. 

• Our clinic address is 1940 Elmer J. Bissell Road Birmingham, Alabama, 35243

Our staff includes—

• Jennifer Chambers, M.D., MPH, & TM- Founder

• Dr. Carin Kiser, M.D., Director of The Adoption Clinic

• Amy Elmore, BS, OTR/L- Occupational therapist

• Heather Schuck, LICSW, PIP- Family therapist

• Cathy Bertanzetti, RN- Clinic nurse

• Jessica Ward, MBA- Clinic Coordinator

For more details about our clinic, visit our website.