Behind the Scenes

By Stephen Murtagh, Director of Human Resources & Administration

One of the first things I noticed when I began working at Wide Horizons is that staff really want to work here. Our mission is very compelling, and goes a long way to "selling" the agency as a great place to work and to lifting staff morale during long and stressful days. In very obvious ways, our program, clinical and humanitarian aid staff have a direct and immediate connection to this mission and the children we are trying to help. In less obvious ways, there are a number of staff that work behind the scenes keeping the agency running on a day to day basis, that have just as real an impact on making sure we are successful in helping every child we possibly can.

I see examples of this on a daily basis working with our admin team. It is no surprise to anyone that the paperwork part of the adoption process can be daunting for clients to get through. State, federal, and foreign regulations and requirements keep changing, often with little or no notice. Increasing wait times make it necessary to continually keep documents up to date and file extensions. The admin team is very aware of how difficult it is for our clients to navigate this maze and they continually strive to stay one step ahead of the game, adapting processes mid-stream in order to keep pace with these changes, and make sure we have the most current and accurate information. Even still, problems can happen at any point in the adoption process. But when they do, it is not uncommon for staff working behind the scenes to drop everything, spend hours on the phone with CIS officials, arrange to get documents from a family traveling abroad, hand deliver a package to a CIS office and wait there until they can be assured a needed approval will go through that day. All so that a family's process will not be delayed and a child will be able to come home as soon as possible.

I am continually amazed at our staff that work tirelessly behind the scenes with mountains of papers, filing, deadlines, and regulations and often wonder "why do they want to work here?" I guess because, at the end of the day when the computers are shut off and the files put away, the team can go home knowing that, because of their efforts, a child somewhere in the world is one step closer to coming home.