• Creating a child-centered adoption
• How can you tell what is adoption related and what is not?
• How do you distinguish between and respect each layer of diversity present in  your family?
• How will your child's needs change over time?
• How do we learn to advocate for our children? Adoption and the school years.
• Choosing an adoption professional who is adoption competent

• What happens when a child knows their birth family? 
• Is it always a good thing? 
• What are the complications that come with openness? 
• How do we manage an open adoption over the long run? 
• How do we understand the impact that having an open adoption will have on our children at each developmental stage and how having different forms of adoption will affect our children when there are more than one child in the family

• How does being LGBT impact on the adoption process?
• How can we make being LGBT work to our benefit?
• How the vast differences present in LGBT parented adoptive families have been overlooked as we’ve been defined and grouped according to only one layer of diversity and the impact that this is having.
• How does our being LGBT affect our children?
• How can we use our experience as LGBT people to become particularly empathic mentors for our adopted children?
• What can we expect our children’s developmental milestones to be and how are they different from those of other children?
• As LGBT parents, should we consider open adoption?

• When a child is differently raced from his/her parents, their status as an adopted person is more obvious. This workshop will address ways in which this difference makes things both harder and easier for the family.
• Once the child grows up and moves out into the larger world, the world will see them as and respond to them as though they are who they look like. How can parents prepare children to value and honor the pieces of themselves that come from their biology and the pieces of themselves that come from their adoptive homes at the same time?
• How do we prepare our kids to be and honor who they will be seen as being once they leave our care?

• There is a lot of scrutiny during the adoption process – the homestudy, the adoption resume, the courts, etc. Once we become parents we naturally want to reclaim our privacy.
• We need to prepare ourselves so that we are ready, by the time that our children become school age, for a new kind of intrusion. The schools become our partners in parenting.
• How can we, an unrecognized minority group, bring our families needs and challenges to the school community in a way that results in our children being seen and valued. How can we work with the schools so that they understand how adoption affects children at different ages?

• Adolescence is an important and all too often unstable period for all members of a family. It marks the transition from childhood to adulthood. It has become a very complicated and elongated period of time as society itself becomes more complex. Adolescents search for clues about who they will become. They look at where they’ve come from and experiment with different identities. This period of time is complicated for an adopted child because there are additional pieces of identity to integrate. How can parents make this period a safe one, one in which their family will become stronger, and one from which their family may well benefit in the long run?

• How can adoptive parents be best prepared to become the best parents possible?
• What information do prospective adoptive parents need in order to make the kind of decisions that will benefit their family over the long run?
• How can prospective adoptive parents begin to understand what it feels like to be an adopted person?
• How can adoptive parents help their children to feel fully valued?
• How can adoptive parents develop the ability to understand what behaviors may be adoption related?

The workshops will be held at Trowbridge House Bed and Breakfast in Millerton, New York. Millerton is in Dutchess County on the CT and MA borders. You may take a look at Trowbridge House by going to www.trowbridgehousebandb.com.

Attendance is limited to five couples. These workshops are for adults only. When children are present we have found they easily become over stimulated. We want you to feel free to focus on the material being presented. Cost for the seminar is $600 per couple. We have space for two single people who may share a room. Cost to each of them will be $300. Included is Friday dinner, all Saturday meals and Sunday breakfast, as well as lodging, the seminar, and all printed materials.

There will be a limited number of slots available to meet privately with Michael Sunday morning. Cost is $150 per hour consult (Cost in NYC for this service is $200/hour).

Registration will be on a first come first serve basis. Please contact Michael directly at 212 777 7270.

We are not yet able to accept credit cards. Please submit a check to secure your place at the workshop.

Refunds are available up to two weeks before the seminar. After that time a credit will be given for a future seminar.