Resource Kit for Navigating Teen Foster Care & Adoption

What’s it like to be separated from your parents at an older age, temporarily or even permanently?

And how might it feel to then be adopted?

What kinds of support would we need in order help someone through those experiences? And what about support for their birth and foster/adoptive family systems, what does that look like?

There are so many questions that come with navigating foster care and adoption at an older age. Some questions similar to infant and child adoption, and others unique to the particular circumstance of being older during such a time of transition.

This resource kit is for you, I hope you find it useful as you work these layers out in your own stories. These are all online resources I’ve found helpful throughout my own clinical work with families and children on the adoption and permanency spectrum.

Of course, they are not meant to replace personalized professional consultation and care, but they are great discussion starters as you and your family work together, that those navigating foster care and adoption would find meaning, satisfaction and hope during seasons of loss and change.

ReMoved Short Film captures the experience of removal as well as a pathway toward healing.

Adopted Children Have Already Been ReHomed

The Impact of Adoption on Teen Identity Formation

The Developmental Repair manual contains research and applications that can be mapped onto your unique family context. The principles are so helpful as we imagine what’s going on with a person’s body, mind, and heart during intensely stressful circumstances such as relinquishment, termination of parental rights, or transition into a family system that was chosen beyond their consent.

Thank you so much for stopping by and trusting me as a resource in your journey. I think one of the main ideas I want families to take away is “relationship.” Where relationships have disappointed or even hurt folks, your job as a caregiver is to show a new kind of relationship. There’s so much more to it than that, but not much more.

To the extent you’re able, adoptive and foster youth will be served when you recognize the various pains and questions associated with their birth family, while you simultaneously commit to showing up here and now within the safe, trust-filled and hope-embracing relationships of your family. And now, as you’ve invited this person into your life, their family is your family, too. In all their joys and sorrows.

Of course the “how” of that process is up to y’all to co-create together, but the “why” remains clear. Show them a version of family in which they can feel safe, seen, heard, equipped and supported, not to replace the important individuals in their lives but to be in their lives as a calming and inspiring presence in their stead, as we all envision a better future together.

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