This training will focus on best practices surrounding birth family connections for adoptive and foster families. Participants will learn about best strategies in honoring birth family relationships during open, semi-open, and closed relationships, and how to process missing and difficult pieces of information about children’s histories with them in ways that are affirming yet truthful.
In this interactive training, participants will also learn about common misconceptions about birth families and how those misconceptions negatively impact the relationships birth families and adoptive/foster families have with one another. Participants will also learn about best practices in honoring cultural histories/identities of their family members.
In addition, those in attendance will also hear how grief and loss impact different members of birth adoptive, kinship, and foster families, and how to honor the losses we feel in a family integrative model.