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What should you look for when you are considering therapy for your child or your family? How do you find the right fit for your child's needs? We talk today with Kelly Raudenbush, Executive Director of The Sparrow Fund, a non-profit that provides therapeutic services for foster and adoptive children and their grown-ups. She is a child and family therapist with an MA degree in counseling and a certificate in clinical infant and early childhood mental health. She's also an adoptive mom.

In this episode, we discuss:

• What are some of the common reasons families seek therapy for their child or family unit? 
• When is it time to seek a therapist?
• What types of professionals can provide therapy?
• Is there a difference between therapy and counseling? 
• What makes a therapist trauma-informed?
• What’s the difference between being adoption-competent and adoption-informed?
• What should parents look for to determine if a potential therapist is competent to handle the trauma, adoption, or foster issues they are facing?
• Where can parents or caregivers go to find a therapist with the lived experience of being adopted? What might the benefits be in seeking a therapist with this lived experience?
• Can you list the more common therapeutic models of treatment that adoptive, foster, or relative caregiver families might consider? 
• When should therapy with our kids involve just the child, or the child and the parent? 
• What questions can parents or caregivers ask to determine if the therapist is a good fit for the child and family? 
• Are there additional or specific considerations for therapy that should be addressed if our child has experienced sexual abuse?
• What is home-based therapy and what are the advantages to this type of therapy for adoptive, foster, or relative caregiving families?
• Is therapy via tele-health or via teleconferencing as effective as in-person for our families? 

Additional Resources:

• https://sparrow-fund.org/
• Therapy Resources for Adoptive, Foster, and Kinship Families
• Adoptee and Foster Alumni Voices
• Therapists: Parents Should Be With Their Kids for Adoptive or Foster Therapy Sessions
• A Guide to Selecting An Adoption Or Foster Therapist
• Family Centered Treatment 

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