Actor, playwright and composer Patrick Burns brings his personal story of resilience and tragedy to the stage. In "From Foster Care to Fabulous" Burns brings the audience along with him through four foster families he lived with as a teenager. You can watch a trailer for his show below: Learn more about Patrick Burns on [...]
The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adopioin has announced its list of the 100 Best Adoption-Friendly Workplaces in the U.S. This is the seventh annual list. Among the criteria the foundation uses to detrmine its ranking includes adoption benefits (the amount of financial reimbursement and paid leave for families that adopt), company programs that encourage and [...]
Last week the Donaldson Adoption Institute released its newest policy perspective titled, "A Need To Know: Enhancing Adoption Competency Among Mental Health Professionals. The report highlights the difficulty that adoptive families face when seeking clinical therapeutic services in finding practitioners who have a deep level understanding and training in permanency and adoption. While many therapists [...]
The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry estimates that ten million children witness incidences of domestic violence between their caregivers (or intimate partner violence [IPV]) each year. In addition, a recent U.S. survey showed that more than half of youth exposed to IPV had also been maltreated. Such exposure can result in manifestation of [...]
With the start of a new school year, there are many times when adopted children may be faced with challenges. These challenges may be everything from dealing with assignments such as creating a family tree, or bringing in a baby picture to class, or science projects that involve assumed biological-relatedness (see here for an example). [...]
In general, young adults ages 19-26 are overrepresented among the uninsured in the U.S. Estimates from the Centers for Disease Control show that 27.5% of youth in this age group were uninsured in the first 3 months of 2012, compared to 15.4% of the general population. According to a 2012 article from Policy, Politics, & [...]
According to a study by researcher Alice Home, from the University of Ottawa School of Social Work, the major challenges for Canadian adoptive parents are finding and accessing post-adoption support and services, and getting a diagnosis and then understanding what that means for a child with special needs. Particularly challenging for parents who adopt internationally [...]
[Uncredited photo from Governing Magazine] On August 13, 2013, Jonathan Walters looks at the myths and challenges of kinship care for children in the child welfare system for Governing magazine. In Agencies Taking a Second Look at Kinship Care, Walters relates a commonly uttered phrase when caseworkers hesitate to place children with relatives, "The apple [...]