|
Initially
most prospective adoptive parents focus on becoming
parents. They want to know:
u
What
do I have to do to become a parent?
u
How long will it take to become a parent?
u
How much will it cost to become a parent?
Most pregnant women or couples considering
placement want to know:
u
How
will my becoming a birthparent but not a parent affect
my life?
u
Will
my child hate me for placing him for adoption?
u
How
do I explain my decision to the people who are or will
come into my life?
After
placement people can shift their focus toward becoming
the best birth or adoptive parents possible. This means
beginning to ask a different type of question.
u
What
is adoption about and how will it affect my family?
u
What
is going on for me and for my family at this point in
time and what is likely to come up next?
u
Is
there anything that I can do to address personal beliefs
or emotional obstacles that interfere with my being
fully available to my family and myself?
u
Does
my family have (or how can we get) the familial and
community support that we need to honor who we are and
how we came together as a family?
I help people understand what adoption means at different
points in their family’s development so that they
understand where they are and where they are headed.
I work to help them make the kinds of choices that are
representative of their long-range intentions.
I
work in a number of ways:
Consultations:
Not everyone wants or needs therapy. Some people benefit
from receiving information about where their family
is in its development, some information about how to
address current challenges and ideas about what might
come next.
Short-Term Crisis
Management:
Sometimes things happen that throw us into disequilibrium.
During these times it is helpful to work with someone
who can provide a structure and a “holding environment”
so that you can struggle forward in safety. Once you
have re-stabilized, you go back to your life enriched
rather than depleted by the experience.
Therapy:
Some people identify areas in their life that they would
like to work on in an ongoing way.
Professional
Consultations:
Some people are already working with a therapist. I
am available to meet with clients and their therapist
to give them a sense of the role that adoption is playing
in their lives without disturbing their therapeutic
relationship.
Trainings
and Seminars:
Education for therapists, educators, doctors, nurses
and legal professionals about the long-term nature of
adoption.
Clinical
Mediation
Mediation is becoming a common form of dispute resolution.
But does it resolve anything? All too often people are
forced to accept a resolution that is unlivable for
either party. Clinical mediation offers people an opportunity
to get to a beginning place – a place where their
intentions are clear and then later offers support,
education and guidance as the parties begin to work
together to get to a place that is, if you’ll
excuse the expression “win-win.”
If
we are going to help children find value in all of who
they are, we need to create child-centered adoptions.
Child-centered adoption keeps the focus on children's
needs. This helps them find a way to value both their
biological and adoptive heritages. Clinical mediation
helps both adoptive and biological families learn about
and act from a place that values the unique contribution
that they can make to the well being of the child.
PreAdopt
Program:
Is adoption right for you?
A curriculum designed to help both pregnant women/couples
and prospective adoptive parents understand both the
ongoing nature of adoption and how adoption will affect
and inform their lives over the long-run. How do people
make choices now that include the things that will be
important to them in the future. How do people make
decisions about which form of adoption is right for
them (open v closed, domestic v international, infant
v older child)? How will adoption affect the other relationships
in your life?
LGBT
Adoptive Parenting:
The number of LGBT parented adoptive families has increased
dramatically over the last decade. Many of the developmental
challenges facing adopted people are strikingly similar
to the challenges faced by LGBT people as they grow
up. When this is understood, LGBT adoptive parents become
particularly well prepared to use their experience to
mentor their adopted children. When this is not understood,
LGBT parents can feel that they have done something
wrong when their children wrestle with the same kinds
of challenges that their parents had hoped they’d
left behind.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
About Adoption
Initially most people begin to think about adoption
only when considering either placing a child for adoption
or becoming a parent through adoption.
At this point in time, pregnant women or couples have
a limited period of time during which they need to make
decisions that may be among the most important they
will ever make.
Should they parent or place for adoption?
If they decide to place their child for adoption, to
whom do they turn for help?
How much should they participate in the decision making
process?
How much contact, if any, should they have with the
adoptive family?
If
they would like to have contact, what kind of contact
is appropriate?
Pre-adoptive parents frequently enter the world of adoption
having failed to become parents biologically. They have
spent a lot of effort trying to create a family and
they typically focus on the following questions:
What do I have to do to become a parent?,
Who
can help me become a parent?
How long do I have to wait to become a parent?
How
much will it cost to become a parent?
Although
all of these questions are staggeringly important as
one begins to engage with the world of adoption, the
reality is that they all focus on the “placement”
of a child and not on the long-term nature of adoption.
There
are deeper questions that parents can begin to ask once
they understand that adoption is a lot more than an
event.
In the case of a birthparent:
What does it mean to become a mother or father but not
a parent?
What
experiences are inherent in being a birthparent?
How
does being a birthparent change one’s role within
their family?
What
role does a birthparent play for an adopted child at
different ages?
Many birthparents have told me that they did not understand
the long-term implications of being a birthparent. People
considering making an adoption plan for their soon-to-be-born
children need to investigate what being a birthparent
will mean for them. This is affected by the form of
the adoption, the age of the child and the relationship
between the birth and adoptive parents.
In the case of an adoptive parent we need to address
a different set of questions:
How
do I become the best adoptive parent possible?
Do
I really have complete permission to become my child’s
parent?
What
role and how big of a role should adoption play in our
family’s life?
|
