World Wide Wednesday – July 31, 2013

It’s World Wide Wednesday! Here’s what’s happening the world of foster care and adoption around the web:

• Adoption at the Movies reviews “The Great Gatsby.”
• In this video, Megan Massey shares how her life changed when she and her husband decided to become foster parents. “We had to learn how to meet our own needs as a couple as well as the needs of a child.”
• Working with Incarcerated Parents and their Children to Achieve Positive Outcomes – Archived NRCPFC Webinar
  This webinar featured presentations from Iowa and New York, which addressed child welfare system collaborations with Departments of Corrections (DOC). Iowa presented information about engaging incarcerated parents at the state level and at the local level through the Mount Pleasant Correctional Facility Project. Iowa discussed issues of training, barriers, and lessons learned regarding the local pilot child welfare system-DOC collaboration, as well as the State-level DHS-DOC collaboration undertaken as part of Iowa’s Program Improvement Plan implementation. New York, in partnership with The Osborne Association’s New York Initiative for Children of Incarcerated Parents, presented on achieving permanency and well-being for children of incarcerated parents. New York presenters discussed the importance of visiting and maintaining relationships to achieving permanency and well-being for children/youth in foster care with incarcerated parents, and shared information about televisiting as one strategy for maintaining connections, as well as the role of kinship caregivers and foster parents as critical partners. The NY presentation provided information about Office of Children and Family Services collaboration with the NY State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, as well as NY Chapter 113 of the laws of 2010, which highlights discretion when considering termination of parental rights and other issues related to incarcerated parents and parents in residential substance abuse treatment with children in foster care. (June 2013)

• The Pathways Research and Training Center at Portland State University created this special issue of Focal Point on best practices for helping youth and young adults with mental health challenges reach their educational and employment goals, by highlighting preliminary results from some of our research at Pathways to Positive Futures as well as some of the work being done at the Transitions RTC at the University of Massachusetts. Included is an article entitled, “Better Futures: Helping Young People in Foster Care With Mental Health Challenges Prepare for and Participate in Higher Education.”

Have news you’d like to share? Please post in our comments!

World Wide Wednesday – July 24, 2013

It’s World Wide Wednesday! Here’s what’s happening the world of foster care and adoption around the web:

• To support adoptive families in considering and maintaining open adoption, this factsheet from the Child Welfare Information Gateway describes various levels of openness, potential benefits, important considerations, and tips for building and strengthening open relationships.
  
• Addison Cooper recently reviewed The Invisible Red Thread, a documentary about teenage adoptee Vivian Lum’s journey from her home in Canada to her country of origin, China. In this post, Vivian sits down with Adoption at the Movies to share her insights about the journey.
• In a post of the same name, Julie Alvarado shares a post about Healing the Trauma of Adoption.
• Wisconsin foster parent Charonne writes for the Kid Hero blog in a post title Biological Parents Need Our Love, Too.

Have news you’d like to share? Please post in our comments!

World Wide Wednesday – July 17, 2013

It’s World Wide Wednesday! Here’s what’s happening the world of foster care and adoption around the web:

• In this post on the Kid Hero blog, foster parent Gene Dukatz shares his family’s miracle: their daughter.
• Adoption at the Movies goes to see the new film Epic. Find the movie guide here.
• Contributing to household tasks and responsibilities is a great way for children to feel a sense of belonging. This post, Chores Without Threats or Bribery, on Attachment Parenting.com has some great tips for getting kids involved at any age.
• This webinar recording from the RTC for Pathways to Positive Futures shares some of the barriers youth with mental health conditions in foster care face while preparing for and accessing higher education, and how the Better Futures Project is attempting to address these challenges.

Have news you’d like to share? Please post in our comments!

World Wide Wednesday – July 10, 2013

It’s World Wide Wednesday! Here’s what’s happening the world of foster care and adoption around the web:

• Adoption at the Movies went to see Star Trek Into Darkness. Read the adoption movie guide here.
• In this video, foster parent Paulette Drankiewicz shares about why she and her husband started fostering – and what inspires them to continue.
• The latest issue of the National Resource Center for Adoption’s The Roundtable focuses on the importance of providing support and preservation services to adoptive families. Read the issue here.

• On September 19, NACAC is hosting Healing from Food Insecurity: Beyond the Stash at noon central time. In this webinar, Dr. Katja Rowell will explore how a child’s early experience with hunger or food insecurity can result in survival behaviors that continue in foster or adoptive families. This solution-oriented webinar will cover tips and strategies to reduce food anxiety and help the family build attachment over meals.
  

Have news you’d like to share? Please post in our comments!

World Wide Wednesday – July 3, 2013

It’s World Wide Wednesday! Here’s what’s happening the world of foster care and adoption around the web:

• After posting about the film CLOSURE, Addison Cooper had the opportunity to interview Angela Tucker and her husband, filmmaker Bryan Tucker, about Angela’s search for her birth mother, the making of the film, and what this has meant in their lives. Read the post here.
• The April issue of the National Council for Adoption’s Adoption Advocate (Number 58) includes an article by Kris Faasse entitled “Birthparent Issues of Grief and Loss,” which explores a range of needs of expectant parents considering adoption, from their need to be assisted in exploring the option of parenting, to ways to assist them in reconciling adoption loss. It also includes information for adoptive parents and practice tips for practitioners.
• Join Adoption Learning Partners on Thursday, July 18, for a webinar titled “Can We talk? When Kids Start Asking About Adoption.” In the car … in the kitchen … at bedtime … it can happen when you least expect it –– your child asks you a question about adoption and you don’t know how to answer it. The webinar features Pat Johnston, author and publisher, as she discusses common adoption questions kids start asking and when and how to share the tough stuff and answer questions with limited information.
• This post on the Adoption Magazine blog, Hair Confessions of an Adoptive Mama, is from a real-life mom writing about her experiences with taking care of her adopted daughter’s hair.

Have news you’d like to share? Please post in our comments!