0:00-->9:32 Silent except a brief welcome at 6:03 mark and Contains several rotations of 7 CE Intro Slides with the following information:
Title Slide: LOGO centered on top: Anne & Henry Zarrow School of Social Work. Continuing Education - The University of Oklahoma. Below LOGO: The Value of Adoption Competence for Mental Health Professionals & the Community. Presented by Dawn Wilson (MSW) & Leslie Wright (LCSW). Tuesday, July 30th 12:00pm-1:00pm CST

All other intro slides: LOGO in upper left corner. Top right: Virtual CE The Value of Adoption Competence for Mental Health Professionals & the Community. Tuesday, July 30th, 2024

Slide 1: Thank you for joining us today.
Slide 2: For Those Seeking CE Credits: instructions to verify attendance
Slide 3: We Want to know your thoughts - online evaluation https://bit.ly/4ciKVC9
Slide 4: Online payment now available OUSWK online payment marketplace https://bit.ly/4ePJeyr
Slide 5: Continuing Education Certificates CE Database https://bit.ly/3VnSLDD
Slide 6: Today's Session Will Be Recorded Resource Database (Google Folder empty): https://bit.ly/3KCINcO
Slide 7: Links & Information will be provided in an post-event follow-up email.

At the 9:00 mark, attendees are visible on screen (still silent).

Presentation slides are shown throughout the video. Presenters' contact info near end of transcript.

[Sierra McClendon]
Hello. Hello. Welcome to everyone who has joined us so far. We will, um, go ahead and give everyone a few more minutes since we ha we're not quite at 12 yet, and then we will get started.
Hello everyone. Welcome. Thank you all so much for joining us today for our lunch and Learn. We have a new face, which is mine. You u usually see Bonni doing our introductions. So, hello everyone. Uh, thank you all for, for joining us.
We have two fantastic presenters joining us today who are gonna go over some fantastic programming, The Value of Adoption Competent Mental Health for our community, for mental health professionals, and they have a really fantastic, um, presentation for us today. Soon, we will post all of the details with, um, CEUs and Foster care, CEUs, all of those fun things in the chat for those details. If you haven't been to a lunch and learn with us before, we have a little survey at the end and we have a database where you get all of those sent to you or you have access to them.
Um, but we would love to kind of hear where you're from, uh, where you represent. And so please feel free to introduce yourself. Um, and I am gonna go ahead and pass it over to Dawn and Leslie. I see that Leslie is unmuted, so I think I'm gonna pass it over to her.

[Leslie Wright]
Hi. Nice to be here. Si Sierra, it's really, um, really exciting. Uh, and now Dawn is also unmuted. Uh, it would be, so are you wanting them to put their names and where they're from in the chat? Is that what you were thinking about Sierra? Oh,

[Dawn Wilson]
It's like Sierra froze,
 
[Leslie Wright]
Froze. Um, so if we could, we

[Dawn Wilson]
Just wanted to be clear.

[Leslie Wright]
Yeah, if you can, Yeah, if we could, if you could put your, um, name. We'd also love to know, uh, your role or personal connection to adoption, if you don't mind putting that into the chat. Um, or is it, do you have a professional role, uh, and or a personal, uh, connection with adoption? So we'd like to, to know that, if you don't mind.

[Dawn Wilson]
And Leslie, while you're talking, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself.

[Leslie Wright]
All right.

[Dawn Wilson]
And then I'll pull up the PowerPoint and we can start.

[Leslie Wright]
Perfect. So, I am Leslie Wright. I work for CASE or the Center for Adoption Support and Education. I am the TAC or Training for Adoption Competency, uh, manager. And I do a lot of TAC training and, uh, for professionals. And I do, um, some curriculum development for, uh, TAC. Dawn?

[Dawn Wilson]
Sure. I'm Dawn Wilson. I am really happy to be with you all today. I'm the director of our training institute at CASE, the Center for Adoption Support and Education. And, um, as a training, uh, institute, we provide lots of workforce development, uh, trainings for child welfare, mental health, uh, education, uh, professionals, and then also lots of, uh, supports and services for, um, uh, foster and adoptive and kinship families as well. So I'm gonna go ahead and share my screen and hopefully everything will work. Let me optimize.

[Leslie Wright]
And I'm noticing while Dawn's pulling that up, I'm noticing, uh, a lot of personal, uh, connections to adoption. I'm noticing, uh, lots of interesting roles, uh, in terms of professional, uh, connections with adoption. And I always think I know that in my TAC classes when I haven that great combination, uh, it's gonna really bring so much to, uh, the energy of the class. So, welcome everybody, and, uh, again, real, real happy to be with you today.

[Dawn Wilson]
Alright. So for some reason it's showing the wrong screen. So let me try that again. See if I can get, Oops, sorry. Maybe that's that one. Sorry guys. Okay, It's up. Which, what are y'all seeing? There you go.

[Leslie Wright]
Yeah, the, the Beneath the Mask.

[Dawn Wilson]
Okay.

::Slide - Event Title with pictures of Dawn Wilson and Leslie Wright::

Lemme go back one. There we go. Okay. So that's us. Okay. So you, I can't see anybody, so I'm just gonna start us off and then I'm gonna turn it over to Leslie, so in a minute. So, okay.

::Slide - CASE Mission::

Just as, uh, Leslie said a little bit about us, we're the Center for Adoption Support and Education. We are based in, um, Burtonsville Maryland. And we are, uh, have now for over 25 years been a provider of mental health services specializing in serving foster, adoptive and kinship families in the Maryland, DC
and Northern Virginia area. So we've, we've continued to provide those, uh, adoption competent mental health services, and we've become what we consider sort of a national leader as well in, uh, providing, uh, training for professionals across the country. And we also, um, are a leader in transforming policy and practice through research and advocacy.
Um, so you can see on this slide some of the services that we provide. Um, some, uh, clinical services, services CASE management services. Um, we also are the lead organization for a new initiative called the National Center for Adoption Competent Mental Health Services. And I know that Oklahoma, um, is working with us as, um, our first Technical Assistance site. Um, so a little bit more about that.

::Slide - Images of books and other tools::

Um, as I mentioned, we are, um, a national leader in the provision of mental health services and also resources to support families. So this just gives you an idea of some of the publications, um, that we provide. We developed a program called 'Wise Up', which is an empowerment training, uh, for children and families to really help, uh, children, um, develop skills in how to respond to those intrusive and sensitive questions. Uh, you could even say microaggressions that they get from peers and other people in the community. You know, 'where are your real parents?' or 'why don't you look like your parents?' Or, um, 'how much did your parents pay for you?' I mean, all kinds of different questions that kids are, are, um, faced with. So, 'Wise Up' is, is, uh, an empowerment tool to work with them. Our, uh, CEO and Co-founder is the co-author of "Beneath the Mask Understanding Adopted Teens", and we have a companion workbook for that as well. And then, uh, over here is the little deck of cards, uh, "52 ways to talk about, um, adoption" as a way to, um, promote conversation in families. So anyway, some of our resources.

::Slide - "The Big Black Box" video::

We wanted to start off by, uh, giving you the perspective of, um, or at least perspective of one adoptive, um, parent, uh, in terms of accessing therapy that was not adoption competent. Some of you, uh, may know or have heard of Deb Shug. She is a, uh, an adoptive parent of a couple different, uh, sibling groups. She's also a parent advocate and does some wonderful work in California and across the country. So I'm gonna, uh, let her speak for herself here, and hopefully you all can hear this.

[Deb Shug]
The girls were assigned therapists from their county, which was not the county we lived in, so we had to travel out of county every week for their therapy appointments. Um, one of my daughters, who has a significant history of sexual abuse was assigned to a male therapist, which I found frustrating because she was terrified of men. Um, but we would take them, we were doing what we were told, um, by the social workers.
So we took them to therapy every week, and they each went into their own therapist, and I stayed in the waiting room, and then they were brought back out to me when they were done. And we, we just, we didn't know any better. So that's what I did. But I asked, you know, so what did you talk about? And they said, well, that's confidential, and I, oh, well, how can I help them if I don't know what you talked about?
Um, and so we would take them home from therapy and we'd have huge behaviors in the car and a lot of self-harming behavior for one of my daughters. Um, and a lot of kind of acting out aggressive behavior from the other, um, but without a lot of guidance in terms of what was happening. It was like kinda this big secret that was going on in there for 45 minutes every week that we weren't privy to. It was very frustrating.

::Slide - NTI Logo within video player::

[Dawn Wilson]
All right. I'm curious, before we go to the next slide, if this is, um, something that resonates with any of you on, on our call today. Have you had similar experiences, or have you heard from parents similar experiences with therapy?

[Leslie Wright]
What, what would you say made this, uh, as we identified this as non adoption competent? Yeah. What do you think went into our thinking there?

[Dawn Wilson]
Well, what were the components that made it not adoption competent? What was happening?

[Typanga Oden]
Didn't they mention like, it was supposed to be family therapy, but they are only bringing the kids back, and so that's not family involved, especially when you are dealing with foster Kiddos, and you're not bringing the foster parents back, that kind of creates like this barrier or wall saying like that, well, that's not your family, so we're not gonna pull them back. So

[Dawn Wilson]
Yeah, that's a a, a great example. And this idea of how do you do attachment work with children alone in the office for 45 minutes. Yeah. I, any other, any other examples of what you heard that maybe are a little concerning to you?

[Marion Ritchey]
Um, I would be concerned because there's not any like, um, facilitating of the education psychoeducation or helping them communicate and, you know, work on the family communication because it's a brand new thing.

[Dawn Wilson]
Right. Yeah. Uh, wonder wonderful example, right? So no communication, no psychoeducation, no helping the parents understand what the kids are experiencing and what's, what's, you know, what the challenges might be for them and, and where those come from. Um, how are parents supposed to better understand and, and, and do a better job if they don't have any clue what's going on?
Um, let's see. Typanga says, "I always encourage family talking at the end of my session with kids, so they have the skillset to tell parents what we talked about, if they feel comfortable doing so." So, right. Again, trying to facilitate that, that interaction between children and their and their parents. That certainly wasn't happening, happening here. You know, it's confidential, right? The 'big black box', you know, it's what we talk about is secretive and special and, and how is that supposed to be productive for the family? All right. So I'm gonna go to the next slide, Leslie, I'm gonna let you take over.

[Leslie Wright]
Sure. And I think about what is a message that's given to the family?

::Slide - "The Big Black Box" video briefly continues::

[Deb Shug]
The girls were,

::Slide - Elevated Utilization of Mental Health Services::

[Leslie Wright]
uh, at those, at those times, you know, that, uh, in, in adoption competent therapy, we believe that where did, where is it the children do most of their healing and growing within families.

[Dawn Wilson]
Families,

[Leslie Wright]
yeah. And we want to give that message very loudly and clearly, you know, along the way. So, uh, also, we also believe it, it is very important, you know, we, we've been, uh, got lots of, uh, years of good research that we've built, uh, the NTI and TAC upon, but it's also very essential for adoption competency. Any, any, uh, thing that says it's adoption competent, that we've gotta make sure that we have listened very closely and hard to lived experience to members of the adoption kinship network. So adoption competency always involves, uh, uh, lived experience voices.
So let's, um, let's look at some of what the research does tell us. So, um, and, and why adoption competency is so important.
So about two, um, adoptive families are about two to five times more likely to utilize outpatient mental health services than non-ad adoptive families.
And adoptive families are four to seven times more likely to utilize residential treatment. And while children who are adopted are about 2% of the population in the u in the us, but they make up 25 to 30% of youth in residential programs. And we see this elevated use of services, um, in all types of adoption, uh, intercountry, private, domestic foster care adoptions. Um, so this is, um, uh, you know, this is a population that has unique needs and, uh, that, you know, for the most part.
Um, you know, if we think back, uh, to our are, uh, for the professionals on the call, usually when I ask professionals. Um, "so how much time did you get in your college classes on working, uh, with adoptive families and understanding their needs?" Thank you, Marian. There is very few little response. People are like, "well, you know, I, I think there was about 20 minutes in one of my classes." And that, that's just not, that leaves us not understanding, um, the adoptive, the adoption kinship network members needs. All right. So, uh, Dawn, if you could go to the next one.

::Slide - Important Conclusions::

So from our research, we can also draw some important conclusions. So from the past two decades of research, we've learned that the elevated pre prevalence of mental health service health issues isn't caused by adoption, but by the adversity, trauma disrupted attachments that typically were experienced prior to adoption. And that most of the research is focused on comparing children who were adopted with their non-ad adopted peers living in similar communities with the children who were adopted, manifesting more adjustment problems. But there have been some more recent studies that compared, um, children who were adopted with children who remained in adverse circumstances, and the children who were adopted showed more positive adjustment in that light. And that, that in that light adoption can be seen as a protective factor. So you can go on.

::Slide - Need for Adoption-Competent Practitioners::

So it's important, you know, that we have adoption competent professionals and pr practitioners and, um, and, and that's mental health professionals. But we really want to spread adoption competence more of our more understanding, um, and, and, and our communities and all, um, professionals who are interacting with our families. What about adoption competence in schools and in medical professionals? And, uh, that, that it, it, this really needs to be, uh, in, in the best light. It's a community project of becoming adoption competent.
So again, when we look at that elevated risk, you've gotta keep perspective that while most adoptive parents report seeking mental health services, there's really a wide range and the services needed by families. We also know that it's really important that we not pathologize help seeking, we're not seeing this elevated risk as, I mean, I'm sorry, elevated use as a negative. Um, that, you know, it may be that we have a family that's being proactive in learning about the needs of that, of their children and how to best parent, um, uh, their adopted children and other parents might seek to navigate those normative developmental challenges that adoptive children and teens experience, while we also have some families who are needing more intensive interventions for higher, for higher levels of need. And of course, we know that many children who have experienced abuse, neglect, disrupted attachments are gonna exhibit behaviors and emotional responses that are understandably challenging for parents. And parents often identify, uh, those sorts of behavior behaviors and emotional responses as a major stressor for their families. And, you know, that parents may not have been prepared for these challenges.
There's a real range in, um, types of preparation for families out there. And, um, and we also know, let's say, learning about trauma and the effects of trauma and how trauma is healed, or learning about what it means to parent a child with disrupted attachments, that that is not a 10 and done. It is a, it takes a lot of learning, it takes a lot of, uh, effort and, um, coaching and, you know, uh, to, to really get there to understand those parents may have great parenting skills. And, and, um, you know, I've heard parents say to me, Leslie, "I've raised five kids already. Look, they're all doing fine." And they're right, but they didn't know. What they didn't know is that they would need therapeutic parenting skills, developmental parenting skills. And that's, you know, that's a very different skillset that how do, how do most of us parent? Like we were parented.

[Dawn Wilson]
And Leslie, can I just add too real quick?

[Leslie Wright]
Yes.

[Dawn Wilson]
Um, you know, uh, having worked on the child welfare side of things where we're, you know, disclosure of a child's experience is important to parents, but knowing that a child was whatever, sexually abused or left alone for two or three days or, you know, whatever the circumstance might have been, is very, very different from understanding how that impacted the child and what that means for their, their own understanding of the world, and then their understanding of themselves, and then how they, how they behave in the world.
Um, and so, you know, disclosure is not really just about giving a list of the things that happen to a child. It's about helping parents understand what that means for a child. And I think sometimes parents don't get that, um, that kind of information that really can help them to truly understand what that means for their child, if that makes sense.

[Leslie Wright]
No, that's a great point, Dawn. And so have the information, understand what that means for that child, and then what will it mean for their parenting? because it will have implications for their parenting. So, great point. So, and what, you know, talk about adoption competence in a system or systems that, you know, we've already said that very few of us really got a, you know, any, uh, training in our, you know, early on in our, uh, educational and professional careers. But if we look at systems, we'll know that few agencies even maintain identifying, uh, families as adoptive families. You know, that, that, that it's, it's oftentimes not even part of assessments, it's just it can be an unknown. Uh, and then, then what does that mean? You know, if, if, um, the, the, the clinic, the clinician assigned or the, the teacher or doctor or whatever, they don't even know that, um, uh, that about this family, that's important. And, and oftentimes a very, especially for a professional's working with a family, uh, important information.
So access to adoption, competent mental health services is a critical factor in promoting child and family wellbeing and to helping the success of adoptions. There is a need for specialized mental health services for this population. And it's important to have this special, to have specially trained professionals qualified to deliver these services. And again, that, uh, CASE has really put in a lot of effort. And, uh, looking at live, listening to, uh, lived experienced voices and looking at the research and clinical practice as we have tried to develop curriculums and services that, um, are better suited for, um, adoption kinship network members.
And when we say the adoption kinship network, just wanna say we cast that net very wide, um, that we're talking about children in foster, you know, who are adopted and foster care. We're talking about their families, we're talking about their siblings, we're talking about, um, kinship families. We're talking about children in foster care, still awaiting permanency. So we just really like to, um, you know, say, uh, that again, that net is cast very wide. Alright. Uh, Dawn?

::Slide - Unhelpful Help::

So, so again, listening to parents, listening to members of that, um, uh, adoption kinship network, um, that we've heard parents talk about unhelpful help. They've gone to therapists. They might have gone to five and, you know, five or more therapists, they just haven't felt like they've received help. Something that was helpful to their family and to their child. So, uh, they, you know, they might be hearing things like, "Ugh, you just need to be consistent in your parenting." Or, "she's only a child. Why do you let her have so much control?" Or, "Hmm, you might wanna consider sending her back to foster care or a group home. It's, it's not make not fair to make her brother suffer." Uh, so just those sorts of statements. And what, what do you hear in those sorts of statements? If you were a parent, what would you hear? And if, if that was said to you,

[Marion Ritchey]
I would feel invalidated as a parent.

[Leslie Wright]
Yeah. Yeah. Good, good stuff in the chats here. "Sounds like they're talking about an animal. Send, send them back to the shelter." Uh, um, o um, "not a lot of support, not a lot of hope." And "I feel like you're telling me I'm incompetent, that I can't help my child. I'm not doing it right. here, I'm trying, but I, you know, I'm, I'm not, I'm not feeling like, uh, you're telling me I'm not skilled enough. I'm not whatever enough to help my child and that, um, uh, you know, send a, send a child back into care."
How can that even be? How can that be? When we know that children thrive, they're gonna heal in families. Um, and, and the research tells us that. That children do better in families than they are gonna do in, um, group homes or residential, you know, whatever. Children need families. And I'm not saying there's never a room, never a place for those, um, those kind of services, but, uh, telling a parent to send their child back into foster care is not adoption competent work. Um, yeah, I would feel the therapist would think I couldn't do it. No encouragement. Parents, especially mothers, are very good at beating themselves up on a constant basis.
Absolutely. Absolutely. We need to find help that actually, um, uh, says, "I'm gonna partner with you. I'm gonna be there with you to help your family and to, um, to make things better." You know, that, that we know that parents have been, had been trying, they might not have had what they needed because they didn't get the information they needed. They didn't get the training they needed, they didn't, uh, get that, or they didn't get enough of it. It's not, it's not 10 and done. Uh, it's oftentimes takes a whole lot and they need, you know, um, if they've, if they, for, for parents who are considering, uh, sending their child back into care, um, it may be they're just feeling that incompetent and beaten down. So really, really important, you know, that, that we,

::Slide - Unhelpful Help (new slide, same title)::

we gotta get away from, uh, making statements that make parents feel blamed or dismissed. Um, and that, you know, when we think of that in this light, that no wonder at times you might have a parent who is feeling resistant or non-trusting of the process.
So what is unhelpful help? Well, it's help that, well, it's non-help that, um, failed to believe, understand or validate the parents' experiences, uh, seemed to blame parents for their children's problems, um, that help, that was not knowledgeable about adoption issues, uh, did not adequate adequately assess clients or demonstrated a lack of understanding of important issues, failed to include parents in treatment, failed to address family issues, and pathologized that child or family. That any of these, all of these are actually gonna cause more harm than help. Alright. Go ahead Dawn.

::Slide - What's At Stake?::

So let's talk about, I mean, what, what's at stake here? Um, we know everybody on this call knows there's a lot at stake, and we know that from various studies, that a small percentage of adoptive parents seeking post-adoption therapeutic services may at some point think about that possibility of ending the adoption. Again, if, if they are trying and going to different therapist and hearing things like "you need to, you didn't, um, why haven't you", um, or that, that the message given and given and given is you can't do this. And that's not the message that we want to be giving. And, um, so, you know, here we are. Uh, let me get, let's, I, I know I would, I need to remind myself at times of the, the terms, but let's do that brief review.
The ending of a legally finalized adoption is, is oftentimes referred to as adoption disillusion. So that ending of an adoption, and when an adoption is ended after placement. But before adoption is legally finalized, uh, we might refer to that as adoption disruption. Um, in terms we, other terms we might hear are instability and discontinuity, uh, are might also be terms. And, and none of those terms capture in any way the pain and the fallout of, of those terms. Right? And we know that, again, looking at those, the research and statistics that according to research by Rollick and White, the incidents of, uh, that disillusion or ending that adoption increases with time. That the incidence is 2% at two years post finalization, 6% by five years post finalization, and 11% by 10 years post finalization. Whoa. So, I do wanna stop here and say, is this, is this been what you have seen in your communities? Uh, any, any thoughts on that? Marion? Your, your shape shaking your head, that's, that's you're seeing?

[Marion Ritchey]
Yeah, I have, I've had some parents who said, "you know, we, we wanted to open our home and we wanted to work with these children." And because of the lack of support that they had gotten, you know, they felt like it was threatening their marriage And the disruption to their other children. And so, yeah, it makes sense to me that it increases over time sometimes because they're not fully supported by people who don't understand what they're going through.

[Leslie Wright]
Yeah, yeah. And you know, that child is getting older. They might be hitting the teen years and, you know, all, all of that sorts of, uh, you know, the, the teen years have a reputation for a reason, just always. And, but if that, you know, if there, if it's being multiplied in terms of the issues that are ongoing, uh, and the parents are feeling, uh, unsuccessful and they're not feel, and the family is not feeling connected, and, uh, yes, that, you know, that those are, um, uh, some of those reasons that we see, um, this increase over those over time.
Anybody else?
So the likelihood of post finalization reentry to foster care peaks at about 10 and 11 years. And the factors associated with discontinuity include adoption at an older age, the number of placements during foster care, and the presence of behavioral challenges. So, you know, we, we can see, we can see those risk. And what is it we, what are the types of services that we are providing knowing that those risks increase.

::Slide - What Might Parents Be Experiencing?::

So let's think about what those parents might be experiencing. So past research and current practice show that sometimes families themselves raise that possibility of giving up, dissolving the adoption as we just talked about. And that many of these families sought professional help many times over a period of years, but weren't able to find the right sort of help. And research has consistently found that parent commitment to the adoption is critical to adoption continuity. And, um, we, we, we know that that's important and that even when parents are feeling at their wit's end, it's important to recognize that many parents who think about d dissolving the adoption, you know, while they're at their wits end, truly want to find a way to make it work. They might be burned out and tired and feeling helpless and hopeless and, um, uh, ineffective. But many of them actually wanted it to work and they still want to work. They just don't know how to make it work. And that post-adoption support bolsters a family's commitment to a child, that that commitment is important. And when the family feels partners partnered with, you know, having partners in the community, uh, in terms of post-adoption support, their feelings of commitment go up. All right, Dawn?

::Slide - Critical Need for Post-Adoption Services::

So here's one of those foundational principles of, uh, adoption competent work, that post-adoption supports and services are important in strong and stable families, the need for help should be normalized and help seeking viewed as a strength. So that is a principle of adoption competent work. Um, and when faced, you know, when we face parents with this level of hopelessness, it's important that we are there as professionals, and that we can provide a safe, nonjudgmental space to voice these feelings, and at the same time begin to guide the dialogue as to what you can do to help them and the child.
How can you know, how do we convey that sense of partnership with a family who is at their wit's end? Um, while not aligning with the parent's hopelessness? We, we, we, we, you know, certainly hear it and, uh, convey empathy around it, but it's, it, because it's critical that parents feel heard, but they also need to hear that there is help available. There are solutions. And we as, uh, an adoption competent community need to make sure that those services are available for our families and for adoptive families to feel successful, Post-adoption services need to be made available. And of course, these services should include adoption, competent mental health services. Dawn wanna go to the next or

::Slide - "Like Night and Day" video::

so Oh, Dawn we can't hear you.

[Dawn Wilson]
Yeah, sorry. Uh, this, this is the second half of Deb Shug talking about what changed when her family received adoption competent therapy. So here we go.

[Deb Shug]
To say it was like, night and day is an understatement. We had a therapist who was an absolute godsend. She really understood all the nuances, all of the complexities, um, of adoption of children growing up in a family they aren't born into. Um, she had personal and professional experience in adoption. She had specialized training,  in the issues surrounding adoption and permanency. And so she really, really got it. And for starters, she included me in the therapy. So, um, we were in there together and she was helping to kind of coach and facilitate me doing the healing with my kids because she recognized that I'm the one, and my husband is the one who's living with them 24/7, and they're not gonna just heal during that 45, 50 minute session once a week.
Um, but we started doing a lot of attachment work, which I didn't understand at the time. I didn't really know what it was. Um, and, uh, I can remember having some of it feel kind of awkward and not knowing quite how to do some of that stuff with lotion on my little girl's hands and holding her like she was a baby. And I'm like, really? Is this really what we're supposed to be doing? And she's like, yeah, trust me. But I did trust her because I saw the difference. She really got it. And she understood when my kids were sharing something that was happening, and I knew that their version was absolutely not accurate, she taught me how to just wait with that. And that, that, that to trust her, that she knew what she was doing, it didn't mean that she believed what they were saying, hook, line, and sinker. It meant that she was getting lots of other helpful information about how they were feeling by the way they were describing it.
So she taught me a lot. She taught me not to talk so much. She's like, nah, Debbie, you didn't talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. No, the kids are not learning through your words. Um, she spent a lot of time checking in with me when we'd first go so that I could, you know, cry or rant or brag or whatever it was about what was going on that week. And then we would welcome my child into the room and then we would do that family work together. Um, but I, I largely credit her with keeping our family together because we had some very, very difficult times with some really, really big behaviors that I think would've unraveled a lot of families. Um, but having somebody who really got it and having a safe place to take that without being judged was hugely helpful.

::Slide - NTI Logo within video player::

[Leslie Wright]
Alright. To, well, let's, I, let's go back, Dawn, for a minute.

[Dawn Wilson]
Oh, sorry.

[Leslie Wright]
Or so what was different?

::Slide - Blank within video player::

What did you hear? Or we could even

[Marion Ritchey]
Well, it's, She was included, validated, and has hope.

[Dawn Wilson]
Yeah.

[Leslie Wright]
Yep. What else? I heard at the end, I didn't feel judged, uh, that I thought was important. What else was different? Anything, anything

[Marion Ritchey]
Provided psychoeducation,

[Leslie Wright]
Psychoeducation. They had strategies going on, you know, learning, learning how to, how to, uh, handle these things. Learning how to handle them at home. Uh,

[Typanga Oden]
I think mainly she was just a better fit overall. 'cause one of the things is they mentioned they were originally placed with like a male therapist, and so they were uncomfortable. So she was a female who had not only done it professionally, but like in her own home life and, um, just felt more comfortable talking to her.

[Leslie Wright]
Yep. Therapist knew that healing could only take place throughout, through attachment to parents, supporting parents to attach a therapist working with the whole family, not individually, uh, education, how to relate to the adoptee. Yeah. Great stuff. And I could tell that Deb felt, um, supported too. I mean that, you know, she goes at times I needed to just rant a little bit. I needed to have, you know, some support. So she, she was really feeling partnership and support. Um, yeah.

[Dawn Wilson]
And even when she didn't understand why the therapist was recommending things, I think she had a sense that the therapist, because the therapist was explaining like what attachment work was about and why that was important, she could trust that she knew what she was talking about. I think that was important too, because therapy's not always comfortable, remember.

[Leslie Wright]
Yep. Nice. All right. Obviously a huge difference here.

::Slide - What Parents Need to Hear::

So what is it that parents need to hear from us? Um, they really need to hear. You are not a failure raising, uh, traumatized youth is emotionally hard work. Um, together we will find the answers to help your child. I hear that partnership there. Um, you are going to be the most important change agent in your child's healing. And I'm going to be your coach really recognizing where that child is gonna heal.
I, I think it's Dan Hughes who says, um, oh, you know, if you're seeing a child individually, you know, you want that child to love you, meaning the therapist, that's fine. Just don't forget to take them home at the end of the session. And, uh, you know, recognizing, nope, we really need to be helping parents help their child. Um, you can learn how to manage your child's behavior and how you are triggered by it.
We are human beings, right? That, um, you know, we talk about fight, flight and freeze with our children in helping, you know, learning how to understand that. But we forget that parents have the same thing going on and, you know, when the child just threw, I don't know, some, the television into the wall or, or whatever is going on, parents too are gonna go to their go-to, and they need to understand that in themselves. And how do we help them do that and then not react from that place of fight, flight, or freeze. Um, you can learn new parenting strategies to manage their trauma, attachment and mental health challenges. Yeah. Um, that, that all, all of those things are hard, but there are things that can help. And we will be there, you know, partnering with you, uh, on, on that journey. You are the primary expert on your child. Um, you are the best person to identify your child's strengths and needs. So these are the types of messages that adoption competent mental health services should be conveying to parents. All right. That next slide.

::Slide - Adoption Competency::

So just kind of wrapping that up before we open up to questions and discussion, that adoption, what is adoption competency? You know, it's a lot of things and you know, we again have, um, uh, curriculum options that spend a lot of time, uh, defining and going through the elements and the principles and the strategies of adoption competent work. But just in that, you know, to encapsulate it a bit, adoption competency is not a single practice or protocol, but it's a comprehensive set of knowledge, values, and skills based on decades of research and practice with adoptive families that are more responsive to and effective with adoptive families and also under appropriate circumstances with certain foster and kinship families. So, um, okay. So should we, oh, yep.

::Slide - Questions? Presenters' contact information: Leslie Wright, LCSW - wright@adoptionsupport.org & Dawn Wilson, MSW - Wilson @adoptionsupport.org. www.adoptionsupport.org::

::Attendees shown on screen::

Um, so again, we have a lot of good stuff going on, uh, at CASE with TAC and with NTI and lots of great other educational things. So you saw, um, our emails, uh, may Dawn, should we put those into the chat or We'll, we'll just, Sierra, Sierra can, uh, put them out as needed perhaps. But, um, we've, we've been doing a lot of talking here. Um, any, any thoughts, any reactions to anything that you've heard as we've talked today?

[Dawn Wilson]
I can I just add, uh, I know, you know, Oklahoma is doing really some wonderful things along the area of, of building adoption competence. Many of you may already know the things that are going on, but you know what, what, so there are two curricula that that CASE has, has developed. Uh, one is, as, uh, Leslie mentioned, and you saw on the slides the training for adoption competency or TAC training. Um, Oklahoma is one of our TAC sites. We work with about 20 states across the country to train clinicians in our TAC uh, curriculum, which is a very comprehensive training for postmasters level licensed clinicians. Um, and I know OU is working with, uh, Family Hope House, uh, to hopefully train more clinicians across the state in our TAC curriculum. And then the other curriculum is, um, a free web-based training that we develop with funding from the Children's Bureau. 
So through, uh, the Department of Health and Human Services, and that is our NTI curriculum or National Adoption Competency Mental Health Training. I know many of you have probably taken that training or heard of that training. Uh, it is free web-based training and it provides a really strong foundation. Um, we have a version for child welfare professionals and a version for mental health professionals. And most recently we just adapted the training for school-based mental health professionals. So that version is called School-Based Mental Health Professionals Training. 
Um, and so, you know, our goal really is if we can get mental health professionals trained so that we have this array of adoption competent clinicians, but also child welfare professionals who are doing that front end work very often. They're the ones who are, you know, recruiting adoptive families, foster families, trying to provide, um, support to those families, um, disclosure, preparation and support for those families. Um, we wanna make sure they have all the skills and, and knowledge and values they need to do good work with children and families as well. Um, and then of course, on the school side, that's where kids spend the majority of their day if they're in public private school. And so we wanna make sure professionals at the school level understand what might be triggering kids and how to support kids, particularly when they're struggling academically or socially, um, or emotionally in the school setting. So, you know, our, our goal really is to try to like, you know, maybe you could say like blanket the community with adoption competence in, in a lot of ways. And then of course, it's providing supports to parents. So, um, you know, whether it's, uh, there's wonderful trainings out in the world MAP training, pride, training, NTDC, there's all kinds of stuff going on. 
Um, and we also provide, for instance, through CASE our free Strengthening Your Family webinar series that is a available for both parents and also professionals. Um, we'd be happy if you don't already have it, Sierra, I'll be happy to send you our, um, calendar of events. So we have events coming up, not in August, but September, October and November. Um, and then again, 10 webinars in 2025. And for those webinars, the first 600 people who register using our coupon code get in free. And then, um, it's about, I think $10 after that. And if you need continuing education credits, you do need to purchase the CE version, but it's I think 10 or $15. Um, and you get your CEs 1.5 CEs for professionals. So I'll send that Sierra so that you can send it out to your team as well. Yeah, I just wanted to say all that. So any comments from people or questions?

[Leslie Wright]
Laura?

[Lorah Gerald]
Yeah. Uh, it's pronounced LaRay it looks like. Oh, no, no, that's fine. It looks like it. Um, I just wanted to, to kind of mention something. Adoption competency, uh, is more geared towards the adoptive parent parents. And in my world, there's adoptee competent training, which is a little different. It's focused more on the adoptee. And of course we're adults at this point, and we've already been kind of lost in the system when we're children, so that it's, as adults, we are the center focus and not the adoptive parents. I just kind of wanted to differentiate that because when it's adoptee competent, it's a child which is usually adult at that point focused and adoption competent is adoptive parent focused. Now I do think that they can meet mm-Hmm. Um, but they are definitely different focused and I just wanted to mention that.

[Leslie Wright]
Yeah, Great point.

[Dawn Wilson]
Thank you Lorah.

[Leslie Wright]
Dawn, I, I'm always especially excited about the, um, the school focus and, uh, having, uh, uh, when I was the, um, clinical director at Lutheran in the, uh, foster care program, that was like one of the biggest sources of stress for families. They would be getting, you know, five calls a week from the school system. And it's like, how, how to help, you know, parents stay regulated when, you know, they, they're feeling like I've gotta make my child behave at school. You know? And, uh, how, how tough that is. So, um, I I, I think the point of making systems more adoption competent is really an important one.

[Dawn Wilson]
And I think to Lorah's point too, on the school side, there is more of a focus on how to support kids in the school setting, and then how to help teachers understand what kids are experiencing. So it's like, instead of the work primarily being with parents, we're using the teacher as that's who needs the psychoeducation to really understand what's going on. Why when you ask the kids to pack up their supplies, did this kid just, you know, completely, you know, go ballistic and, you know, refuse to put their supplies away? What was going on with that child? Really helping that that teacher understand what's going on and then provide them with skills that they can use to, to provide a more, um, supportive environment. And also just helping, um, school professionals really think about things like, you know, when you do, um, a family tree, you know, assignment or you ask kids to bring in baby pictures, you know, not every child has baby pictures. So how do we help make sure that kids, you know, have that support even in the school assignments that they're doing, um, so they don't feel, um, called out. Right. Um, or somehow othered in a sense, which is often what's happening. All right, Sierra, I'm gonna get you our, um, SYF schedule.

[Sierra McClendon]
Fantastic.

[Dawn Wilson]
Some, some, um, thank you for putting some links in the chat. Anything else we need?

[Leslie Wright]
Well, I just wanna thank everybody for the great comments. They were, I mean, really great comments in the, the chat. So I really enjoyed reading this.

[Dawn Wright]
So Renee asked, "Is there a list of adoption competent professionals, um, especially listing whether they are adoptive family or adoptee competent or birth family competent?" And that's a great question. Um, I will say, I, I'll let Sierra, you can answer maybe for Oklahoma, but at CASE we do have at our, on our website, um, a directory of of professionals who completed our TAC training or NTI training. And I will say that on the TAC training, um, we also are providing information to folks who are gonna be doing work with adoptees, particularly as adults and also with birth families. So while it's certainly more adoptive parent competent, I think we are trying to do some of that, um, balancing a little bit more.

[Sierra McClendon]
Yeah. And just to speak to kind of locally, that is something that we are trying to increase here in our state. This is, this is part of those efforts. We have our partnership with the National Center as well. And so, um, Renee, if you know of professionals who are interested in becoming, adopt, adoption, competent, adoptee competent, all of those things, please reach out and we'll figure out how to kind of create our, our community here is what we're trying to do locally. 
Because I think, um, and I will correct myself if I'm wrong and follow up with the correction, but I think most of our local adoption competent therapist, um, would be on that same list that CASE has, um, because they went through that same program, um, through the Family Hope House. So we're looking to increase that and we would love to do that. Um, it's one of our kind of efforts and our goals coming up. And so if anyone is interested, please reach out, schedule some of those trainings and we would be happy to kind of get you involved and create our own list here locally that we can share out.

[Dawn Wilson]
Wonderful. Thank you all for the opportunity.

[Sierra McClendon]
Yes. Thank you so much for joining us, Leslie and Dawn, um, there's been a lot of contact information put in the chat, so we'll leave this, um, up for a few minutes for anyone to get those. Looks like Lorah has uploaded a couple of resources. She, um, has, um, actually Lorah if you wanna speak about some of the things that you have because you're kind of our local adoptee community, um, that we're kind of part connecting with. So if you wanna speak about some of the things that you have going on.

[Lorah Gerald]
Uh, yes, I do. Adoptees Connect, Tulsa. So any adult adoptee that would like to join our group, I do it the third Tuesday of every month. Um, it's, I'm AdoptedChameleon do, uh, on social media, Lorahgerald.com, on website, uh, the resource link I gave you. Uh, there's adoptive parent, there's birth parent, there's adoptees, all sorts of stuff in there. I also have the TAC training, Family Hope, House connections. Um, there are lots of different organizations and groups, summits, conferences also out there. Um, anyway, I hopefully I've got enough stuff on there. If there's anything you want me to add, please do that because I take that to adoptees. I have a private Facebook group 'Adopted Chameleons', that's where the adopted, uh, community and different people, former foster youth and stuff, we all connect so that we can speak in private and talk about things that affect us that maybe we can't say to our adoptive families. So, uh, that's some of the resources that I have really quick 'cause I know we're gotta go. Thank you so much for having me.

[Sierra McClendon]
I appreciate you sharing that. Like I said, we'll leave these links up. Um, uh, and if you have any questions, I believe we will repost the link to, um, fill out the evaluation for CEUs. If you have any questions, please contact us. Leslie, Dawn, thank you so much for joining us and everyone, I hope you enjoy the rest of your Tuesday. Thanks.

::1:10:59 to 1:17:28 - Silence as attendees leave.::