Permanency Tip of the Week: Coming to an Understanding of the Mother-Child Connection
Of all human relationships, one of the most unique, powerful, and complex is that between a birth mother and a birth child. The bond between these two individuals is one that we all experience in some way and yet no two experiences are the same. It is critically important that we support our Youth, along their journey towards Permanency, to help them come to their own understanding of this relationship. For some, this relationship relates to love, strength, and positive experiences. For others, this relationship relates to hurt, loss, and confusion. Whatever our Youth’s experience, we must help support them in this journey and ensure our continued commitment to helping them secure Permanency.
Permanency Success Story of the Week: Couple Finalizes Adoption in Lake County’s (FL) First-Ever Zoom Ceremony
Orlando Sentinel – The kitchen in Nathan and Alysha Jackson’s Clermont home is used for more than cooking. It doubled as the backdrop for Lake County’s first Zoom adoption ceremony. Nathan, 28, and Alysha, 29, went from not having any children to getting two in just a matter of hours. They have been fostering a 1- and 2-year-old brother and sister for 13 months before getting the green light for adoption this month.
The couple never expected to become the adoptive parents of Evangeline Eloie Maria Jackson and Elias Nicolas Killian Jackson because the main priority of foster care is reuniting the children with their families, they said. “It was overwhelming because it was finally happening, we’re finally finalizing this,” Alysha said. “And just feeling so supported by our friends and family, that was a really incredible feeling. And thinking, ‘Wow, after this, our kids are ours forever…’”
Permanency Related Articles:
A Mother’s Tribute from a Former Foster Child
Connect Our Kids – While the backstories of the co-founders of our organization and what drives them are different, both had an experience as a child that motivates them still today. Growing up, Jennifer Jacobs rode the school bus with neighbors who were foster children. She often wondered why their story was so dramatically different from hers. Over the years, and later as a mother, she often returned to the thought of how challenging their lives must be, moving from home to home without permanent families.
Fostering Hope Podcast with Rita Soronen
Jen Lilley – Fostering Hope Podcast – Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption – Rita Soronen, President & CEO of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, joined actress, singer and foster care adoption advocate, Jen Lilley, on her new Fostering Hope podcast.
“How do we make sure that every child, not just some of the children, but every child, has the opportunity for a safe, nurturing, and permanent home?” Rita asked. Jen and Rita encourage listeners to open their hearts and think deeply about getting involved.
A Social Prescription: Why Human Connection Is Crucial to Our Health
NPR – Vivek Murthy was a newly-minted doctor when he realized that his thorough medical school education had fallen short. His training hadn’t prepared him for one of the most frequent health issues he saw in the examination room: loneliness. Vivek remembers feeling helpless when a patient recounted his sense of social isolation and the physical health problems linked to it. “I felt utterly ill-equipped to address what was clearly the issue that was on his mind,” Vivek says.
Years later, when Vivek became the 19th Surgeon General of the United States, he witnessed a “dark thread of loneliness” in his conversations with Americans across the country. Loneliness, he realized, was more pervasive than he’d thought, and was bound up in other health issues in complicated ways. He calls loneliness “the great masquerader”; it often manifests as other emotions, such as anger, or through behaviors, such as drug or alcohol abuse.
Even after Vivek left his post as the country’s leading spokesperson for public health, he continued his effort to understand loneliness. In Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World, Vivek highlights the importance of relationships, the hazards of loneliness, and what we can do to live a more people-centered life. His book arrived on shelves at a time when the vast majority of Americans are under orders to stay at home. This week on Hidden Brain, during a time of mandated physical distancing, we talk with Vivek about the importance of human connection and how we can strengthen our social ties…
Dear Adoption, This is My Mother’s Day Poem
Can Early Childhood Environmental Factors Help Predict Child Maltreatment?
Child Family Community Australia (CFCA) – Our research looked at the likelihood, or “risk,” of a young person reporting in early adulthood that as a child they were subjected to abusive or neglectful behaviours from parents or other adults…
We found that young adults’ reports of experiencing abusive and neglectful behaviours during childhood was predicted by the following “risk factors”: economic and social disadvantage, poor parental mental health and substance use. Remember that the presence of a risk factor in a child’s familial environment does not mean that maltreatment is automatically occurring – it just means that, statistically, there is a greater chance they will experience abuse or neglect (see Risk and protective factors for child abuse and neglect for a more detailed discussion)…
Moving schools frequently, parental separation/divorce, parental mental illness and substance use, and demographic characteristics of young maternal age and parental immigrant status were all significant independent correlates of child maltreatment. These indicators of vulnerability highlight the social groups in Australia most susceptible to child maltreatment.
There was a general consistency across the risk factors for each of the types of maltreatment we examined – physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, neglect and witnessing of domestic violence – suggesting it is likely that the underlying causes that link vulnerability to these forms of maltreatment are consistent across the different harm types…
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- Take care and keep up the Permanency work – Our children, youth, young adults, families, and communities are depending on it!
Sincerely,
Dr. Greg Manning