Creating a Family: Talk about Adoption, Foster & Kinship Care

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Why is kinship care important, and what are some of the challenges? Our guests are Gregory Jones, a granddad raising five grandkids from birth to now ranging in age from 9 to 12; Ana Beltran, an attorney, and director of the Grandfamilies & Kinship Support Network: A National Technical Assistance Center; and Erica Burgess, a social worker with over 25 years of experience in child welfare, specializing in kinship care.

In this episode, we discuss:

• How common is kinship care throughout the US—both formal (child welfare involved) and informal?
• Grandparents raising grandkids or aunts and uncles raising nephews and nieces is often complicated and comes with a mix of challenges and blessings.
• What are some of the blessings?
• What are some of the challenges? 
• Managing the relationship between the caregiver and the parents.
  • What are some common challenges in this relationship?
  • What are some common boundaries that need to be set in kinship care?
• Lack of preparation and training for raising kids who have experienced trauma, neglect, prenatal exposure to alcohol or drugs, etc.
• Lack of financial support.
• How can social workers and child welfare professionals make sure that kinship caregivers get the full extent of financial support?
• Access to resources. What are some typical resources that kinship caregivers should ask about and that child welfare agencies should consider providing?
• We see a significant variance between jurisdictions in social workers and child welfare professionals in the embrace of placing children with relatives.
  • Why are some social workers hesitant to place kids with relatives?
  • From an ethical perspective, why must social workers open their minds to looking for kin first when removing a child from their parents?
• Placing children with kin rather than the state taking custody. (Hidden foster care/kinship diversion)
  • Legal considerations
  • Ethical considerations with the hidden foster.

Great resources:

• Grandfamilies & Kinship Support Network: A National Technical Assistance Center 
• Grandfacts: State Fact Sheets for Grandparents and Other Relatives Raising Children
• NCKinshipFamilies.org - Legal Permanency Options for NC Kinship Families website
• Free Kinship Legal Clinic 
• Kinship Caregivers and the Child Welfare System
  • https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/f-kinshi/
• Online Kinship Support Group - email [email protected]

Support the show

Please leave us a rating or review.  This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.

Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:

• Weekly podcasts
• Weekly articles/blog posts
• Resource pages on all aspects of family building

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks!

Question: My husband and I are in the process of growing our family through adoption. It would be a domestic infant adoption, and we are hoping to cultivate a long-term relationship with the future baby’s birth family. I noticed that whenever I feel hesitation when thinking about openness, I can bring myself back down to earth by recognizing that any hesitation results from making things about ME, not the baby or birth family. 

The one question I can’t seem to navigate on my own is this...what do adopted children call their birth mothers? How do I, as a future adoptive mom, refer to the baby’s birth mom? I want to respect the baby and birth mom; any insight on how families handle this would be so helpful! 

Resources:

• What Does Your Child Call Her Birth Mother?
• 5 Tips for Navigating Sticky Situations with Birth Parents
• Positive Adoption Language & Why It Matters 

Support the show

Please leave us a rating or review.  This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.

Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:

• Weekly podcasts
• Weekly articles/blog posts
• Resource pages on all aspects of family building

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks!

Are your child's birth parents struggling with addiction, mental illness, or intellectual disability? If so, join us for this discussion with Teresa Bradley, a psychotherapist with over 17 years of experience in addiction counseling and mental health. She is a Master Addiction Counselor, Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapist, and clinical trainer at Amerigroup.

In this episode, we discuss:

Substance Abuse Disorders

• What are some of the challenges that adoptive or foster parents might expect to see when a birth parent is struggling with a substance abuse disorder (SAD) and not able to raise this child?
  • How are those issues different for relative caregivers, like grandparents raising grandchildren? 
• At what age should we start talking to the kids in our care about their parents’ challenges with substance abuse? How do we bring it up? How do we decide what to share and when?
• How can parents address that emotional fallout and deal with their own expectations, triggers, or negative feelings about the birth parents’ SAD?
  • For relative caregivers, especially grandparents raising grandchildren, adding layers of guilt, shame, and disappointment.
• How might an open adoption relationship change across a birth parents’ journey through SAD? How should adoptive parents approach openness in their adoption when SAD is a known issue?
• What do you suggest parents or relatives do to process their feelings? 

Mental Health Challenges or Intellectual Disabilities

• What are some of the specific challenges that adoptive or foster parents might expect when they are trying to support a child of parents with mental illness or intellectual difficulties?
• How can parents explain a birth parent’s challenges to children? When? How?
• What are some of the questions kids might have but cannot voice?  
• How do we address a child’s concern that they will “get” this mental illness without scaring the child?
• Is this a good reason to limit contact with birth parents?
• How might an adoptive or foster parent talk to children and youth about the birth parents’ ability to connect or maintain a relationship? 
• When a kinship caregiver has a pre-existing relationship with this birth parent, how do they talk about the challenges and how their relationship changes in light of their struggles? 
• What other issues do we need to consider to maintain a relationship with the birth parents while keeping the child safe and feeling cherished and supported?

Resources:

• How Do You Manage Relationships with Birth Parents with Substance Use Disorders? 
• Open Adoption
• Working with Birth Parents for the Child’s Best Interests

Support the show

Please leave us a rating or review.  This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.

Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:

• Weekly podcasts
• Weekly articles/blog posts
• Resource pages on all aspects of family building

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks!

I have been listening to your podcast and supporting your mission for several years. We adopted our daughter at birth through an open adoption. We began caring for her on day two; she is now 9 years old. She knows she is adopted and has seen photos of her biological parents. Her parents had problems with addiction and the law. We only tell her, “They were not able to care for you.” She has not yet asked questions about her biological parents, but she does opine about being an only child. We have not yet told her about her full biological brother, the full brother who died from neglect as an infant, her five half-sisters, her biological grandmother, or that her biological father died a few years ago, having “fallen” off a bridge. She will obviously know everything eventually, but we are concerned about when and how to tell her. 

Resources:

• How to Find an Adoption Competent Therapist - resource page
• Talking About the Difficult Parts of Your Child's History - online course
• Building the Framework for Adopted & Foster Children to Process the Hard Parts of Their Stories - article
• Talking about the Difficult Parts of Your Adopted Child’s History - older podcast interview

Support the show

Please leave us a rating or review.  This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.

Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:

• Weekly podcasts
• Weekly articles/blog posts
• Resource pages on all aspects of family building

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks!

Are you considering adopting a sibling group? Join us for this interview with Deborah Bass Artis, MSW and Senior Program Director of Foster Care to Permanency with Children’s Home Society of NC.

In this episode, we discuss:

1. Why is it important to keep siblings together when placed for foster care or adoption?
2. Advantages to adopting siblings.
3. Special issues to consider
   1. Thinking About Adopting a Sibling Group? Things to Consider First
   2. Practical Tips for Fostering a Sibling Group
4. Integrating siblings with children already in the family
   1. Involve children already in the family
   2. Get your support network in place before you adopt 
   3. Suggested books for helping siblings understand adoption. 
5. Parentified child
   1. Tips for handling a parentified child. 
      1. Parenting Tips for a Parentified Child
6. Overcoming unhealthy dynamics from their past
   1. One child was the favorite in their previous family or families.
   2. Sibling rivalry 
7. When is it not a good idea to keep siblings together?
8. Consider your motivation carefully- be honest with yourself and your partner about your desire to adopt a sibling group. 
9. Tips for parents adopting or fostering a sibling group 
   1. Educate yourself before opening your home to a sibling group- it always helps to have realistic expectations
   2. Be patient with yourselves and the children- it’s a big adjustment for everyone.
   3. Develop your support system ahead of time.
   4. Take care of yourself. Spending time on things that are important to you is not selfish!
   5. If married, ensure your marriage/partnership remains strong- it is the foundation of your family’s health.
   6. If single, maintain your friendships. You need to have a life outside of your children.
   7. Find individual time with each child in the family 
   8. Pay attention to each child’s interests and personality and create opportunities for those to grow. Don’t treat the sibling group as a unit.
   9. Seek out professional support for the family when needed.

Support the show

Please leave us a rating or review.  This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.

Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:

• Weekly podcasts
• Weekly articles/blog posts
• Resource pages on all aspects of family building

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks!

Question: I have a daughter who has dealt with trauma from consistent experiences of neglect and abandonment. While our home is loving and supportive, she continues to exhibit a victim mentality and has a hard time taking responsibility for her actions. She's a sweet girl, but she makes comments to others that insinuate she is not having her most basic needs met, which is simply not the case. How can we help her, and how should we be responding to her self-victimization? 

Resources:

• Creating a Family Online Facebook Support Group
• Helping a Child Heal from Trauma
• Self-Care for Foster Parents

Support the show

Please leave us a rating or review.  This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.

Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:

• Weekly podcasts
• Weekly articles/blog posts
• Resource pages on all aspects of family building

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks!

Are you really struggling with your adoption and feeling you've made a huge mistake? Listen to this interview with Lindsay Lanham, MSW. She works at Holt International and is the author of the online article “Predictors of Adoption Disruption and Dissolution: A Literature Review.”

In this episode, we cover:

• Difference between an adoption disruption and adoption dissolution. 
• What causes an adoption to fail? What causes parents to say: “Help, I don’t think I can continue this adoption?”
• Child-related factors:
  • Child’s age
  • Child’s behavior 
    • Aggression or children who sexually act out
  • Are sibling placements more stable?
• Adoptive parent-related factors:
  • Demographic characteristics? (age, marital status, parenting experience, income, race)
  • Parental expectations
  • Parenting style
  • Relationship prior to the adoptive placement
  • Characteristics of parents in successful adoptions
• Adoption professional-related factors:
  • Identify problems quickly and provide support
  • How to address children who have experienced sexual abuse. “It is recommended that social workers universally prepare families for behaviors associated with sexual abuse trauma and the possible impact of sexual abuse. Adoptive families should have the language necessary to speak about child sexual abuse and know how to access supportive resources in their community, such as child advocacy centers, prior to placement.”
• What should parents do when they realize that the adoption isn’t going as they had hoped/planned?
  • Identify the problem quickly and get support.
  • Reset expectations
  • Self-care
  • Get help
• What should parents do if they are reaching the point where they want to dissolve an adoption?

Resource: Predictors of Adoption Disruption and Dissolution: A Literature Review 

Support the show

Please leave us a rating or review.  This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.

Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:

• Weekly podcasts
• Weekly articles/blog posts
• Resource pages on all aspects of family building

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks!

Question: I've been an adoption social worker for almost seven years and just experienced my 2nd situation where the birth mother in a match had a stillbirth after selecting a family through our agency. Both situations were such a difficult loss for both parties. I'm curious if you've heard of others who experienced this unusually tragic type of loss during adoption. I'm not sure how common it is, especially given the rate of stillbirths is 1 in 175 births in the U.S. How can adoption professionals (on the adoptive parent AND birth parent side) best walk through such a situation with their clients? 

Resources:

• Creating a Family Online Support Group
• How can you deal with your feelings of grief after a stillbirth? (March of Dimes)
• Stillbirth: Surviving Emotionally (American Pregnancy Association)
• Find a Local Chapter - The Compassionate Friends

Support the show

Please leave us a rating or review.  This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.

Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:

• Weekly podcasts
• Weekly articles/blog posts
• Resource pages on all aspects of family building

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks!

Are you thinking about adopting a baby? Are you worried about what risk factors exist that you should know about? Join us to talk about these issues with Dr. Lindsay Terrell, a pediatrician at Duke University Medical Center and an Assistant Professor in their Department of Pediatrics. And James Fletcher Thompson, a South Carolina attorney with extensive experience in adoption. 

In this episode, we discuss:

• Lack of prenatal care.
  • What is covered in prenatal care and how might a lack of prenatal care impact a baby?
• Prematurity
  • What causes a premature birth?
• Prenatal exposure
  • Alcohol
    • What are some red flags that a mom might have abused alcohol during her pregnancy?
    • Does the degree of impact differ depending on when in the pregnancy alcohol was consumed?
    • What are the long- and short-term impacts of alcohol consumption on a child exposed prenatally?
    • Creating a Family’s Prenatal Substance Exposure Workshop for Parents
  • Opioids 
    • List of opioid drugs in increasing degree of strength
      • Codeine.
      • Hydrocodone (Vicodin, Hycodan)
      • Morphine (MS Contin, Kadian)
      • Oxycodone (Oxycontin, Percoset)
      • Hydromorphone (Dilaudid)
      • Heroin
      • Fentanyl (Duragesic)
      • Methadone, Suboxone
    • Does the degree of impact differ depending on when in the pregnancy the opioid was used?
    • Does the degree of long-term impact differ depending on whether the baby was born dependent or with a diagnosis of Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) or Neonatal Opioid Withdrawal Syndrome (NOWS)?
    • What are the long- and short-term impacts of opioid exposure on a child exposed prenatally?
  • Cocaine
  • Marijuana
  • Methamphetamine 
  • Polysubstance abuse 
  • Creating a Family has extensive resources to help parent a child exposed to opioids prenatally. 
• Sexually Transmitted Infections
  • What are the common STIs? 
  • What are the risks of each of them to the unborn child or newly born child?
• Mental Health Issues
  • What is the genetic connection for the following mental health disorders? How heritable are these mental illnesses?
    • Anxiety disorders, including panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and phobias. 
    • Mood disorders: Depression, bipolar disorder 
    • Personality disorders (antisocial, borderline, narcissistic)
    • Psychotic disorders, including schizophrenia
    • ADHD
• Legal Risk Factors
  • What are the most common legal risk factors when adopting an infant through private adoption?

Support the show

Please leave us a rating or review.  This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.

Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:

• Weekly podcasts
• Weekly articles/blog posts
• Resource pages on all aspects of family building

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks!

Question: I've been listening to your podcast for a few years! Our 10-year-old kinship adopted daughter has lived with us since she was 2 months old. For a variety of reasons, there hasn't been any in-person visits or phone calls with her birth mom (my sister). Communication has been limited to holiday/birthday cards and gifts.  My sister has schizophrenia and bipolar disorders. Because she has been stable on her medications and her behaviors are typically within a somewhat 'predictable' range, we're thinking it's time to begin an in-person relationship.  We're planning on writing a letter to my sister to tell her our thoughts on all of this and establish some ground rules and boundaries. After she has some time to digest that letter, my wife and I plan to meet with her in person (without our daughter) to firm up plans, expectations, etc.  My questions are:

• What are some generally good boundaries to set up? 
• How can we help prepare my sister for potentially tough questions from our daughter? (My sister is in denial that anything is wrong with her.) 
• How can we prepare our daughter for all of this? 
• How can we do this in a way that doesn't feel like we're wagging our finger at my sister and being 'above her'?  

Resources:

• Working with Birth Parents for the Child's Best Interest (Resource page)
• Evaluating Risk Factors in Adoption (Resource page)
• Finding an Adoption-Competent Therapist (Resource page)

Support the show

Please leave us a rating or review.  This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.

Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:

• Weekly podcasts
• Weekly articles/blog posts
• Resource pages on all aspects of family building