DALLAS—Buckner Children & Family Services will affiliate with the Oklahoma-based Dillon International child placement agency effective Jan. 1, dramatically increasing Buckner’s capability to offer international adoption services.
“This immediately doubles our capacity for placing children and offers the potential of exponential expansion and growth,” Buckner Children & Family Services President Albert Reyes said.
Buckner has placed about 4,000 children in more than 120 years; Dillon has placed 5,500 children in the last 36 years.
Buckner’s board of trustees approved the affiliation Nov. 21, following an earlier unanimous vote by the Dillon board.
The agreement calls for existing Buckner Adoption and Maternity Services’ international and domestic adoption programs to join Dillon’s program and operate with the Dillon name under the umbrella of Buckner International. Adoption services will be headquartered in Tulsa, Okla.
Dillon Executive Director Deniese Dillon—who will become vice president for adoptions with Buckner Children & Family Services—stressed the connection of the two Christian agencies provides greater strengths to both.
"Seeking God's will"
“We have been seeking God’s will for ways Dillon International could provide even more ministry to children around the world,” said Dillon, who co-founded the agency with her husband, Jerry.
“We’ve had close ties to Buckner and their leadership for many years. Their mission to help orphans and underserved children on a global scale has also been our mission and heart since we started our ministry.”
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Reyes said he was “thrilled” about the affiliation. “There is no more respected name among Christian adoption agencies than Dillon International. They are internationally known for their ability to serve families and the heart with which they do it.”
Buckner International President Ken Hall said the joining of the two entities “marries Dillon’s outstanding reputation in the international adoption field with Buckner International’s global reputation for humanitarian aid work among orphans and at-risk children. Together, we will be able to serve children and families in so many ways.”
Combination of services
Reyes explained the new affiliation brings together Buckner’s international and domestic adoption programs with Dillon’s international adoption, post-adoption programs, and humanitarian services.
Buckner, founded in 1879 in Dallas, recorded its first adoption in 1884 and has placed more than 4,000 children in homes through adoption. The agency began offering international adoption services in 1995 for families in all 50 states and currently offers adoption services in Russia, China and Ethiopia. Buckner also has a comprehensive domestic adoption program for families living in Texas that includes domestic infant adoption, foster-to-adopt, post-adoption services, birthparent services and adoptions of state-placed children.
Dillon International is a licensed, not-for-profit child placement agency that has specialized in international adoption since 1972. Originally founded to meet the needs of South Korean orphans, the agency has since expanded to include adoption and humanitarian aid services in India, Guatemala, Haiti, China, Ukraine, Vietnam, and Ethiopia.
“They already are in countries where we’ve been wanting to go,” Reyes said.
Dillon serves families from offices in St. Louis, Mo.; Tustin, Calif.; Little Rock and Fayetteville, Ark.; Richmond, Ind; Kansas City, Kans.; and the Dallas/Fort Worth area. The agency, which has placed more than 5,500 children, also has volunteer adoptive families across the United States who serve as agency information and resource representatives to families.
For more information, go to www.buckner.org or www.dillonadopt.org .
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