The Role of Real Alternatives’ Service Providers

Real Alternatives provides a range of services to expectant and new mothers dealing with the stresses of parenthood. To provide counseling and support to clients throughout Indiana, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, Real Alternatives partners with more than 140 nonprofit service providers.

This network of service providers includes maternity homes, pregnancy support facilities, and social service and adoption agencies, all of which provide pregnancy-related services that help people understand the alternatives to abortion and help pregnant women confront the pressures that often come with pregnancy.

To become part of the Real Alternatives network, a provider must demonstrate that it has offered its services for at least one year and must undergo a rigorous screening process that typically takes between 45 and 60 days. In the majority of cases, the service providers in the Real Alternatives network employ staff members educated to the degree level in subjects including nursing and social work.

Real Alternative Counselors Focus on Forming Close Bonds with Clients

Real Alternatives is a nonprofit, taxpayer-funded organization that provides pregnancy support, parenting assistance, and abortion alternatives to women throughout Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Indiana. In an interview with Peter Kay of K-LOVE’s Closer Look, Real Alternatives CEO and president Kevin Bagatta discussed the organization’s counselors and their commitment to forming close relationships with clients through their mantra of being “caring, confidential, and compassionate.”

Many women with an unexpected pregnancy who come into a clinic lack family support or feel pressured from their loved ones to terminate their pregnancy. The program’s staff encourages clients to share their thoughts and opinions and helps them to navigate their unique situations. In addition, they help families to clear up miscommunications about each other’s assumptions, especially in cases where the mother mistakenly thinks that her partner doesn’t want a child. These engagements focus on empowering women and helping them to explore the various alternatives to abortion.

Another important aspect of the program is the bond that counselors form with their clients. Counselors offer services and resources throughout the mother’s pregnancy and assist her in taking the necessary steps for parenthood or adoption. This can involve referrals to adoption agencies, educational classes on parenting, or help in acquiring the items needed to care for their infants. Furthermore, the counselor-client relationship continues after the mother gives birth, as the organization offers postnatal support for up to one year.

How to Support a Friend Experiencing a Crisis Pregnancy

Serving women and their families in Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Michigan, Real Alternatives partners with these states’ social service agencies to offer free crisis pregnancy counseling and support. With close to 150 centers spanning the three states, Real Alternatives provides safe, empathetic, and non-judgmental advice. The organization also offers food, clothing, shelter, and ongoing parenting education. 

Many people will, at some point in their lives, know of someone who is considering an abortion. Knowing how to be supportive and helpful can be difficult, given the mixed messages that society and popular culture relay about the subject. 

Experienced pro-life counselors generally suggest that you remain loving and accepting of a friend who is experiencing a crisis pregnancy. They advise that you focus on the woman’s need to be heard, understood, and treated as an individual who is capable of making her own decisions. 

Other ways to help include offering practical assistance with activities such as household chores, transportation, and shopping, so that a woman can concentrate on caring for herself and her family.

Friends can also show that they care by staying positive and affirming through their words and actions the value of every human life, including those begun under less-than-ideal circumstances.