Supporting Youth

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 By Kim Stevens and Anna Libertin, NACAC Staff Pat O’Brien, founder of You Gotta Believe, has spent years working to convince audiences that our beliefs are the greatest barriers to lifelong families for every child and youth who enters care. Kim Stevens still remembers attending one of his… 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 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 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

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

Visibility of the transgender community is steadily increasing due in large part to high-profile transgender people such as Caitlyn Jenner, Laverne Cox, and Janet Mock. These three women, by living openly, are helping to educate the public on what it means to be transgender, the experiences and challenges faced by trans people, and the work… Read more

from Summer 2011 Adoptalk “He’ll never amount to anything.” Would those words destroy or motivate you? For me, the words simply seemed true; I should be a failure. Statistics would predict that I’m in prison, but that wasn’t my destiny, was it? Who can know for certain if I will amount to anything, and why… Read more

From Spring 2009 Adoptalk The experience of being a foster or adopted youth is both complex and unique. As such, the process of diagnosing mental health concerns can be paradoxical and problematic. Unlike other children, these youth have lost their first families. In addition, they may have been exposed to drugs or alcohol, abuse or… 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