Thriving Adoptees - Let's Thrive

To find out more at her work check out:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alice-h-murray-174521157/

https://aliceinwonderingland.wordpress.com/

https://www.facebook.com/alicemurraywriter

https://www.instagram.com/alice.h.murray/

https://www.facebook.com/alice.h.murray

Guests and the host are not (unless mentioned) licensed pscyho-therapists and speak from their own opinion only. Seek qualified advice if you need help.

Here's a bit about New Family Social from their website. 

"We're a UK charity, led by LGBT+ adopters and foster carers. New Family Social exists to help you decide if adoption or fostering is right for you and then support you on your journey to becoming parents and carers.  We also work with agencies to develop their services to be as LGBT+ inclusive and friendly as possible. We aim to make the pool of available parents as wide as possible for the many children in care."

Find out more at:

https://newfamilysocial.org.uk/

https://www.facebook.com/newfamilysocial/

https://twitter.com/lgbtadoptfoster

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJJCBmz-H22rlhO75__IauQ

Guests and the host are not (unless mentioned) licensed pscyho-therapists and speak from their own opinion only. Seek qualified advice if you need help.

Amy is passionate about helping others heal their hearts from past hurts - through the use of research and evidence based practices infused with the latest neuroscience research. She has personal and professional experience with adoption, developmental trauma and other developmental disabilities. She is a self-proclaimed "brain geek" and continuously finds fun ways to incorporate the latest neuroscience research into evidence-based practices specializing in the effects of early trauma or neglect on the brain and the best ways to help children and teenagers heal. She is the author of "Toby the Tiger Tamer" and the developer of the Tame Your Tiger Brain Training Program.​ Amy is the 2021 Play Therapist of the Year for the state of Virginia. Additionally, Amy will hold a 2021 Endorsement from The Virginia Association for Infant Mental Health; Category III Infant Mental Health Specialist (IMHS).

Amy is not currently taking new clients. She is supervising the Heart & Mind team, providing workshops, adoptive parent coaching, and supervision for therapists for licensure as a MFT in VA, play therapist and consultations.

Here are links to her book:

https://www.amazon.com/Toby-Tiger-Tamer-Johnson-Reamer/dp/1484099885

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Toby-Tiger-Tamer-Johnson-Reamer/dp/1484099885

Connect with her here:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-reamer-lmft-rpt-s-b9502825/

Heart & Mind is a group mental health therapy practice in Richmond, VA, founded to bring true long-lasting healing to the core foundational needs of children, adults, parents and families impacted by adoption, early trauma, neglect and attachment challenges. Heart & Mind empowers connections through mental health counseling, brain training, neuro-informed services and education. Our staff has extensive training and experience in adoption counseling, developmental trauma, play therapy, Safe and Sound Protocol and EMDR.

Find out more about her organisation:

https://www.heartmindrva.com

https://www.facebook.com/Heartmindrva/

https://www.instagram.com/heartmindrva/

Guests and the host are not (unless mentioned) licensed pscyho-therapists and speak from their own opinion only. Seek qualified advice if you need help.

Cynthia K. Jensen is a Certified Social Worker in the State of Wisconsin.  Cindy graduated Cum Laude from Milton College in 1978 with a Bachelor of Arts degree.  From 1990 to 2009 she was employed by another Wisconsin child placing agency.  During that time Cindy placed more than 550 children with adoptive families.  Cindy keeps current on adoption practice by obtaining an additional 30 hours (or more) of continuing education every two years as required to maintain state certification.  In addition, over the past 28 years Cindy formed strong professional relationships throughout the adoption community as well as with numerous other referral resources.  She has excellent working relationships with the various professionals involved in the adoption process in Wisconsin as well as several other states. Cindy served on a legislative task force to create legislation for a birth father registry in the State of Wisconsin.  She also spoke at the national convention for the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys and has been a presenter regarding the adoption process in many different forums. Cindy is also a past member of the National Association of Social Workers.

https://www.facebook.com/cynthia.jensen

https://www.linkedin.com/in/cindy-jensen-a2b55555/

Adoption Avenues, Inc. strives to provide environments of love and stability for children in need. Education and support is offered for everyone in the adoption process, from the person giving up parental rights to the new loving family. We are a Wisconsin licensed child placing agency offering a full range of adoption services. Our social workers have years of experience. Adoption can be difficult and confusing. We are here to help navigate the process for birth parents who are placing a child for adoption and for adoptive parents trying to choose the best avenue for building a family.

The services we offer include birth parent counseling for women experiencing unplanned or crisis pregnancies, home studies for all types of adoption, step-parent screenings, pre-adoptive preparation, foster home licensing and post-placement supervision services. Wisconsin is an "agency" state, thus a private adoption agency must be involved in every adoption.

https://www.adoptionave.com/

https://www.facebook.com/adoptionave/

https://www.instagram.com/adoption_avenues/?hl=en-gb

Guests and the host are not (unless mentioned) licensed pscyho-therapists and speak from their own opinion only. Seek qualified advice if you need help.

Connect with Kerry

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerry-bocook-34261b83/

Heart to Home Adoption Agency, LLC (HTH) is a licensed Kentucky adoption agency that provides home studies, post placement visits, adoptive and foster parent education and referrals to other professional agencies to prospective adoptive/foster parents in Kentucky seeking to adopt domestically. We offer face to face meetings to support our adoptive families and our placing parents.
HTH also provides birth parent services such as pregnancy counseling and resource, medical and legal referrals. Heart to Home does not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, age, creed, color, religion, national origin or ancestry, disability, veteran status, or sexual orientation.
“Heart to Home is an agency that believes everyone deserves love and is capable of giving it and receiving it. My family changed with adoption. Our goal is to offer a loving and dedicated service to children, placing parents, and adoptive parents”
– Leigh Shapiro, Founder & Executive Director, Heart to Home Adoption

Find out more about them at:

https://hearttohomeadoptions.net/

https://www.facebook.com/HeartToHomeAdoptionAgency/

Guests and the host are not (unless mentioned) licensed pscyho-therapists and speak from their own opinion only. Seek qualified advice if you need help.

Open Arms Adoption Agency has been Sam’s vision for many years. Since reuniting with his birth mother 15 years ago, he has been developing a service to support and educate women when they are in a time of need. His birth mother was 15 years old and not prepared to raise a child when he was born, so adoption was the most loving decision for both her and Sam. Their adoption was originally closed, but as an adult Sam was able to locate his birth mom and now he feels fortunate to have a great relationship with both of his birth parents.

Sam has had his own successful financial services firm for 21 years, he is a Washington State native, and has two WSU Cougar alumni children. His entire family feels blessed that 50 years ago one adoption laid the foundation for their strong family today.

OpenArmsAdoptionAgency.com

https://www.instagram.com/openarmsadoption/

https://www.facebook.com/openarmsadoptionnw

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-barnes-8a5551200/

Guests and the host are not (unless mentioned) licensed pscyho-therapists and speak from their own opinion only. Seek qualified advice if you need help.

Terry has worked in the field of children’s social care for over 38 years. He began his career in the Voluntary Sector, working for the then Catholic Rescue Society as a residential child care officer, before moving to work within a local authority setting in 1983.

For several years he again worked in a residential setting, helping to manage a “fostering preparation unit”, as a qualified social worker, he was enlisted to conduct fostering and adoption assessments too and so the passion for family placement work began.

From 1989 until 2013 Terry managed family placement services for the council and specifically managed the adoption service there for over 24 years. In that time Terry helped steer the service through successive outstanding inspection results and established the service as one of the best performing in the country.

He has built up an expertise in early permanence planning and has routinely been enlisted to support other adoption agencies as they strive to develop fostering for adoption and concurrent placements.

As Director of ARC Adoption Terry’s career has come full circle with a return to the Voluntary Sector. It is now Terry’s hope that he and the team at ARC Adoption can use their skills to make a major contribution to children’s lives on a national level.

Outside of work Terry is a Vice Chair of governors for a local school, acts as a child protection representative for the Catholic Diocese and is chair of a parish council. He is married to Lesley, has a son John, and grandson Oliver, who alongside Sunderland Football Club and two Golden Retrievers called Sadie and Tara, is his pride and joy.

Connect with Terry https://www.linkedin.com/in/terry-fitzpatrick-116155100/

ARC Adoption North East is an Outstanding Independent Voluntary Adoption Agency located in the North East of England.

For all of us in our Sunderland based team, it is a privilege to work in the field of adoption. We use our extensive knowledge and skills to increase the opportunities for children to experience a positive family life. As a prospective adopter, we will take you through the process and help you feel valued and supported. Registered and rated Outstanding by Ofsted, we work in partnership with Local Authorities and Regional Adoption Agencies to help them deliver high quality services to some of the most vulnerable children in their care.

We are fortunate to have a dedicated team of experienced, multi-disciplinary, practitioners here at ARC Adoption who help us deliver a wide range of services aimed at supporting adopted children and their families to feel secure. This has enabled us to be one of the most successful agencies in our region for recruiting families and placing children.

Through our memberships of The Northern Consortium of Adoption Agencies; CoramBAAF Adoption and Fostering Academy; the Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies (CVAA); New Family Social and Adoption UK, we make a major contribution to the adoption process nationally and to seek continuous improvement in all that we do.

ARC Adoption North East believes that every child deserves the right to grow up in a nurturing and loving family who will support them through childhood and prepare them for adult life.

Our primary mission is to increase the number of nurturing, loving adoptive families available to the many vulnerable children in our society who are unable to live within their birth families.

We aim to recruit at least 40 families per year in order to offer a range of placement opportunities to local authorities who are unable to find adopters to meet the individual needs of the children in their care. We intend to increase the number of ‘foster to adopt’ placements available in order to minimise placement moves for children, thereby improving their attachment experience; increase the number of adopters able to consider a ‘concurrent’ placement supporting best outcomes for individual children and increase the number of adoptive families able to consider sibling placements.

https://www.arcadoptionne.org.uk/

https://twitter.com/arcadoptionne

https://www.facebook.com/arcadoptionne/

Guests and the host are not (unless mentioned) licensed pscyho-therapists and speak from their own opinion only. Seek qualified advice if you need help.

Here's some information about Nugent from their website:

Nugent Adoption is a registered and approved Independent Adoption Agency located in the North West of England. Nugent became a Registered Adoption Agency in 1943; therefore we have been involved in placing children for adoption for 75 years.

We provide a welcoming team of professional and dedicated social work staff who are experienced in all areas of adoption. Our aim is to increase the opportunities for children who have experienced a difficult start, to enjoy a positive, safe and secure family life.

We pride ourselves on providing a friendly, responsive service and on guiding our prospective adopters through the adoption process making them feel valued and supported. We are pleased to hear from potential adopters regardless of their gender, age, sexuality, disability, ethnicity, religion or marital status. We are Ofsted registered and we work in partnership with Local Authorities across England, Wales and Scotland to help them deliver services to some of the most vulnerable children in their care.

We also have many years of experience in assessing prospective adopters who wish to adopt a child from overseas. As well as this we offer on-going support to all those affected by adoption such as adult adoptees who wish to access their adoption records, as well as birth family members wishing to trace their adopted relatives.

We are members of Adoption 22; CoramBAAF; the Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies (CVAA) and Adoption UK.

Find out more at:

https://wearenugent.org/

https://www.instagram.com/wearenugent/

https://www.facebook.com/wearenugent

https://twitter.com/wearenugent

Guests and the host are not (unless mentioned) licensed pscyho-therapists and speak from their own opinion only. Seek qualified advice if you need help.

Dominic is an ambassador for IAC - The Centre for Adoption - the UK's only dedicated intercountry adoption charity.

Connect with Dominic at

https://www.instagram.com/dominicpaul91/

IAC’s mission is to place children from all parts of the world, both in the UK and overseas, in loving families and to work in a fair, transparent and professional manner with all individuals who need our services.

Find out more at

https://www.icacentre.org.uk

https://www.facebook.com/iacadoption

https://twitter.com/AdoptAbroad

Guests and the host are not (unless mentioned) licensed pscyho-therapists and speak from their own opinion only. Seek qualified advice if you need help.

Here's the link we discuss in the podcast:

https://voice-for-adoption.org/family-portrait-project

Schylar, a Montanan, joined Voice for Adoption in May 2016. Schylar has dedicated his professional and volunteer life to the belief that children and youth in the child welfare system need respect, support, and family. Schylar has a bachelor’s in professional and technical communications from Montana Tech and a master’s in public administration from the University of Montana.

He has served as president of the board of Montana Court Appointed Special Advocates, secretary of the boards of ChildWise Institute, and FosterClub, and as a commissioner on the governor appointed Protect Montana’s Kids Commission. Schylar is a nationally recognized leader; in 2008, he received FosterClub. Inc’s Outstanding Young Leader award for his work with the Kids Are Waiting Campaign and the passage the Fostering Connections to Success and Increased Adoptions Act. In 2018, Schylar was selected as an American Express NGEN Fellow. That same year, during his time at Voice for Adoption, Schylar was recognized in the congressional record for his work with the passage of the Family First Prevention Services Act.

Schylar’s commitment to improving the futures of children and youth in care is due, in large part, to his own life experiences. He spent 11 years in foster care before aging out without a family. When he was 25, his mentor and sixth-grade teacher adopted him. Schylar explained, “I always longed for a place to call my own and, at one point, was told that I was too old to be adopted.” Schylar remembers the stigma and trauma from his years in foster care and fights for his peers, believing that no child should be told that they are unadoptable.

As the executive director of Voice for Adoption, Schylar continues his life’s work of serving vulnerable—but resilient—young people. “I am blessed with the opportunity to be a voice for children in foster care that are often feeling alone the dark, feel that no one hears them, feel that no cares and that no one is on their side. I believe every child needs the benefit of a permanent and loving place to call home.”

https://www.linkedin.com/in/schylar-baber/

Voice for Adoption advocates, educates, and collaborates to advance federal policies that promote and sustain permanence for children and youth in foster care. Here's more from their website:

All children and youth in foster care in the U.S. will have a safe, loving, supported and permanent family.

We work with members of congress, policy makers, partner organizations, and agencies to encourage sound policies that are in the best interest of our nation’s waiting foster children.

Voice for Adoption (VFA) advocates for the safety and well-being of children in foster care.

VFA holds briefings on foster and adoption issues on Capitol Hill.

VFA works on special projects focused on raising awareness around the needs of foster and adoptive youth, and the families that adopt them.

VFA strives to ensure the foster care and adoption issues remain at the forefront our policy maker's attention.

Voice for Adoption was established in 1996 to provide a permanent mechanism to shape the public debate regarding:

the needs of children who are growing up without families of their own;

• the lifelong consequences for the development of these children and their later functioning as adults when they continue to be forgotten;
• the positive potential of adoption to meet the needs of these children; and
• the benefits to the community of providing ongoing support for families who adopt the children

VFA is a bi-partisan force, which shapes the future by providing accurate information on adoption issues, encouraging prompt adoption of waiting children, and supporting sound public policy in adoption.

Find out more at:

https://voice-for-adoption.org/

https://www.facebook.com/Voice4Adoption

https://twitter.com/Voice4Adoption

https://www.instagram.com/voiceforadoption/

Guests and the host are not (unless mentioned) licensed pscyho-therapists and speak from their own opinion only. Seek qualified advice if you need help.