Supporting Families

From Adoptalk 2018, Issue 4; Adoptalk is a benefit of NACAC membership Adapted by Anna Libertin, NACAC’s communications specialist, from a webinar by Kim Stevens and Nathan Ross.  Kim Stevens is a program manager at NACAC who specializes in post-adoption support, youth development, training for caregivers, and trauma and healing. Nathan Ross is the youth programs supervisor at FosterAdopt Connect… Read more

From Adoptalk 2018, Issue 3; Adoptalk is a benefit of NACAC membership The National Quality Improvement Center for Support and Preservation (QIC-AG) is a five-year, federally funded project designed to promote permanence when reunification is no longer a goal and to improve adoption and guardianship preservation and support. The QIC-AG is built on the premise that child welfare agencies need… Read more

The Problem Each year, about 20,000 young adults age out of the foster care system in the US. Too often, these young people lack the social supports necessary to venture into adulthood successfully. Studies consistently show that young people who exit the foster care system without proper supports are much more likely to become a… Read more

From Adoptalk 2018, Issue 2; Adoptalk is a benefit of NACAC membership By Phyllis J. Stevens Phyllis Stevens is a foster and adoptive parent and founder of Together As Adoptive Parents, an adoptive parent support network, in Pennsylvania. She also helped start the Philadelphia Resource Parent Association and currently works for the Youth Law Center… Read more

From Adoptalk 2018, Issue 2; Adoptalk is a benefit of NACAC membership By Jon Baylin, PhD, and Dan Hughes, PhD © 2018 Jon Baylin is a clinical psychologist who has been working in the mental health field for 35 years. For the past 20 years, while continuing his clinical practice, he has immersed himself in… Read more

From the Summer 2017 issue of Adoptalk. Adoptalk is a benefit of NACAC membership.   Tamarie and Angelique wrote this article as part of their work on CORE: Teen, a federally funded project to develop training for current and prospective resource parents of children who are older and who have more substantial needs. In this… Read more

From the Winter 2017 issue of Adoptalk. Adoptalk is a benefit of NACAC membership. On a Friday morning in 2013, Lori and Randy went to visit their adopted daughter, Shawna (named has been changed), at her residential treatment center—one of many she’d been in during the last two years. Shawna had experienced extreme neglect in… Read more

If you need support or have questions related to your adoption, you can connect with the organizations and individuals below in your state or province. The first listing is typically the local post-adoption service provider(s) and then, where we have them, you’ll find a NACAC volunteer who is willing to answer your questions. United States… Read more

Young people in foster care and adoption have all experienced the loss of their first family and often many more challenges. Children in foster care have typically been abused and neglected and often have experienced complex or ongoing trauma. This trauma can result in lifelong challenges, and result in a higher likelihood of: physical, mental… Read more

This NACAC brief explains the mental health needs of many children and youth adopted from care, explores successful post-adoption services programs, and recommends policy changes that will facilitate the expansion and replication of necessary services. July 2007 Click here to download a PDF… Read more

Adoption disruptions and dissolutions* should be prevented through every service and support available. Innovative programs across the country are keeping adoptive families safely intact, and we know that, with increased commitment, even more families can be preserved. At the same time, however, we cannot ignore the devastating reality for adoptive families who break apart. Too… Read more

Richard Barth and other researchers report that the rate of adoption disruption* falls between 10 and 15 percent. Researchers also say that age at placement is the best predictor of disruption; the older the child is, the more likely it is the placement will disrupt. Given the severity of problems among children being adopted today… Read more

For many years, workers who placed older children for adoption believed that once the children and their families passed through an initial period of adjustment, problems would subside. As we now know, although a large majority of families are satisfied with their adoptions, many adopted children have chronic behavior problems, or have problems that intensify… Read more

Download a more detailed fact sheet about Facebook support groups. NACAC’s Community Cham­pions Network is also available to help you create online support for adoptive parents. For more information, email ccn@nacac.org or submit a request for technical assistance. Around the country today, many adoption organizations are using private Facebook groups as a flexible, accessible way… Read more

“Part of the adoption process should be to help adoptive parents and children connect with other adoptive families. I don’t go to the agencies when I need answers. I go to other adoptive families and find out how they handled the situation.”  ~ adoptive parent In September 2010, NACAC began surveying adoptive families in the… Read more

This NACAC manual is intended to help parents and family advocates learn how to set up parent-to-parent networks to provide post-adoption support in their own communities. The document provides information on six model peer support programs and explores in detail NACAC’s former MN ASAP parent support network. Click here to download PDF… Read more