Permanency Tip of the Week: Integrating Grief and Loss into Therapy
When working with youth in foster care and adoption, the focus of mental health services is often on addressing behavioral problems that may be manifested at home, school and in the community. While addressing these problems is important, the underlying issues related to grief and loss must remain on the radar screen if we are to effectively address the totality of our youth’s challenges. An excellent platform for this is to follow a program such as the Darla Henry’s 3-5-7 Model.
Permanency Story of the Week: The Joy and Rewards of Adopting Teens
Early in their relationship, Robin and Kelly Smith knew that they wanted to adopt kids. “We wanted to give back,” Kelly explains. After the couple married, they considered an international adoption, but soon realized that many kids in the US needed permanent, loving homes. Robin and Kelly were originally interested in adopting younger school-age kids, and began to do research, including visiting the AdoptUSKids website. In 2012, after two years of searching and completion of the foster parenting approval process, the couple spotted a profile of a 16-year-old sister and 14-year-old brother. The write-up immediately reminded the Smiths of themselves as teenagers.
Within a month, the Smiths met Samantha (Sam) and Damian over burgers. “They were open, aware and honest from the start,” Robin remembers. “We connected immediately. During that first meeting, they asked if they could call us Mom and Dad.” Samantha and Damian moved in shortly after, and their adoption was legalized in 2013, within six months. “Sometimes it seems like they’ve been with us forever, and it also seems fast,” Robin says.
Current Permanency Related Articles:
An Age-by-Age Guide to Bonding
Bonding is a necessary step in the adoption process — no matter how old your child is when he or she comes home. Read this age-by-age guide to learn how to promote attachment and security.
Get Ready, Get Set, Four Things All Foster Youth Should Do Before They Turn 18
Here’s a checklist for former foster youth as they approach 18. Please pass it on if you know someone reaching this milestone.
Child Advocates Emphasize Permanence in Helping Children in Foster Care
Decades ago, foster care was viewed as the only solution needed to care for children who needed to be taken away from their families for one reason or another. It wasn’t until later that it became apparent that foster care alone would not help children in the long run.
Adoption and Identity Intertwined: An Interview With Mei Kelly
Last summer, I had the pleasure of meeting with 18-year-old Mei Kelly, who created a documentary called “Adoption and Identity Intertwined.” Mei Kelly was adopted from China at the age of nine months, and she has experienced the unique complexity that adoption brings to identity. Curious to learn how being adopted has affected the lives of other teenagers, Kelly decided to film an adoption documentary for her Senior Studies Project at Evanston Township High School. Here is my conversation with Mei Kelly.
Trauma Sensitivity During the IEP Process
Many parents, be they Special Education Surrogates, foster or pre-adoptive, adoptive, or victims of trauma themselves, struggle with ensuring that their students or children are being best served by the educational process. Many kids who have had adverse childhood experiences suffer with a neurology that makes it difficult to learn in a typical way. The following articles, published in the Federation for Children with Special Needs’ quarterly newsletter, Newsline, demonstrate ways in which the IEP process can be made sensitive to complex childhood trauma issues; that is, trauma-sensitive.
The 10 most surprising things about foster care
Dawn Teo, executive director of the Foster Children’s Rights Coalition, writes: “Trust me when I tell you that there are foster families all around you. Foster families go to your church. Foster children go to school with your children. Foster children are on your children’s sports teams. Your children are friends with them, but they don’t know they are foster children. Foster children don’t like to talk about it. Speaking of not liking to talk about it …”