Adoption Disruptions & Dissolutions, How to Prevent and When to Accept

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Dawn Davenport  0:00  
Welcome everyone to Creating a Family talk about foster adoptive and kinship care. I'm Dawn Davenport. I am the host of this show, as well as the director of the nonprofit creating a family.org. Today we're going to be talking about adoption disruptions and dissolutions, how to prevent and when to accept. We will be talking with Dr. Eshele Williams. She is CEO of the EDW consulting as well as director of the creating stability during change model of practice for resource family disruption prevention and retention. She was the birth child and a foster adoptive kinship family. We will also be talking with Dr. Eileen Pasztor. She is Professor Emeritus at the California State University at Long Beach School of Social Work. And she is a foster and adoptive parent. Welcome Dr. Williams and Dr. Pasztor to creating a family. We're so happy to have you.

Speaker 2  0:55  
Thank you so much. And thank you, Dawn, for having us and all the work that you've been doing over the decades.

Dawn Davenport  1:01  
All right. Let's begin with terms. There's a great deal of confusion, I think between the terms that we use for when an adoption falls apart. So Dr. Williams, what is the distinction between an adoption dissolution and an adoption disruption?

Speaker 2  1:17  
I'm so glad you asked. When we think about adoption, dissolution versus disruption, we think about pre adoption and then post. So disruption is defined when a child is in foster care status. And they are either separated from the family or something happens and they can no longer live with them. And dissolution is post its post adoption. So it is when family separate after adoption has already been

Dawn Davenport  1:42  
finalized. You know, there's a lot of research in the area of adoption, dissolution and the research that does exist. It's frustrating to me, especially if you go back some just some of the older research. It doesn't make the distinction between adoption, dissolution and adoption disruption. And it seems to me that that's an important distinction when in the timing, whether it's when the period of time where the child is living with a family, but yet the adoption not yet finalized. And post. So Dr. Pastore, what does the research show about how common are adoption dissolutions. And I want to make that distinction between the disruption and adoption dissolution.

Speaker 3  2:22  
So, you know, we all we sometimes say statistics, are people with the tears washed off. Yeah, that's a good, it is yeah, really have to think about. One of the reasons it's so difficult to look at the numbers is because sometimes they may be tracked differently by different systems. We also I think, if we're focusing on adoptions that are organized by children in the public sector, then that may be different than private adoptions than adoptions by kinship families that may be informal. So right now, if we're focusing on adoptions that are facilitated by a public agency, perhaps working with a private agency, and then we look at that, then we have to think about and adoption is from the time a child joins that family. And I know Michelle and I will be talking about we don't use the workplace anymore, children on objects, but when they joined that family, all the way to when it's finalized, legally, and that is a legal point in time. The challenge with that is that once an adoption is finalized, then the child has the status that any child would have as if that child is born to us. So that family can move anywhere, they can go to another jurisdiction, they can leave the place where family was created, you know, we say sometimes some families are created by birth, some are created by telephone, you know, where somebody calls and says, Would you consider this child and so we have to think about that. So it's really hard to really know, because you are relying on families to actually say, this child was adopted, we are the legal parents. Now I'm giving that child back. And also, there is concern now about an expression that is known as, quote, re homing. Dr. Williams and I, we use the word home, we use the word family, but sometimes the children will be moved from one family to another. And of course, we don't know that. And so sometimes it might be best, rather than looking at numbers to look at strategies that we could use. And another part on it. It's so valuable that creating a family it's doing this is because when people hear words, dissolution, sometimes they think it's disillusion, and we should remember that it's spelled differently that it's a dif S O L for the ending of an illegal adoption. Not being disillusioned, though I think that fits to some of us, right and I think something times we hear family say, You mean we become disillusioned? Yeah, well, there's that too. You know, so we want to prevent all of that, and talk about the strategies for that. But that you certainly raise an important issue about numbers, we really don't know. So we should put our effort into prevention and intervention. So that we don't have to talk about this, we will say that, it's often been said that many adoptions tend to fare better than marriages in this country in terms of numbers. So we could focus on the positives about that one certainly is one too many? Yes, absolutely.

Dawn Davenport  5:35  
Dr. Williams. And this is a good segue into the stages that a family would go through before they decide to end an adoption. Let's talk about those. And it's a good segue because although we don't use the word disillusion, it is certainly implied in some of those. So Dr. Williams, what are the stages that families go through? And how predictable are they?

Speaker 2  6:00  
What has been done in the research is we've identified or it has identified nine stages of disruption. And they've been really focused on what adoptive families experience as they become more and more disenchanted, and move towards separation of the child from the family. And those stages start at what they call honeymoon. And I think that's one that's a little bit misunderstood, because you would imagine that you were happy prior to something happening. But there may have been some challenges already, the child may, you know, have some pushing pool about being with the family. So you have the honeymoon stage, there is what's called diminishing pleasure, that stage number two, and that's when you're a little less enchanted or a little less happy than what you were previously. Moving on to that third stage would be where we identify the person or the child as the problem. So everything that's going on or wrong in the family is then blamed on that person. And usually, it's the child and you think about the last person that joined the family being the first person that maybe goes or that is identified as having the challenges. The next one is going public. And as you go public, this is a stage that is really hard to rewind, right? You almost can't come back from this one, we usually ask, what's the stage at which there's almost a point of no return. And this would be that it's going public. And when you do that, you begin to identify and have conversations outside of maybe the family environment, or the individuals that are in the family. And you start to talk about how bad things are. And as you start to talk about that people begin to wonder, well, if it's so bad, then why do you continue to do this? Why would you continue to have that child live with you, or to put up with those behaviors. And, you know, most of the time, we don't have a reason for it. So the family might say I'm in a different place. But because they share negative information, then people say, I don't know why you're continuing to do it. That's interesting. The next is either attorney quarter ultimatum, and the ultimatum is given after there has been an incident. So there's a critical incident that says, you know, if you continue to do this, then you can't say here in this family anymore. So there's something that happens that may be so bad, whether it's child behavior, because that takes the blame a lot of times is the child's behavior. And what we like to think about is when we become so disenchanted, and we feel as if our self esteem is impacted, or a third parent self esteem is impacted, and they say, I don't know how to parent this child, then they move towards disruption a lot faster. So that critical incident, I'm not exactly sure how to do this, they give the ultimatum, if you continue to do it, you can't stay. That next one is there's another critical incident, and maybe far greater than what the first incident was or more. And then there's the decision to disrupt. So without any intervention, you move down that negative trajectory, far faster than you would if you identify the challenge in the beginning, and you said I'm a little less happy than what I was before. And then you go ahead and you work on whatever that challenge was, and you have some repair there some assistance, maybe therapeutic intervention.

Dawn Davenport  9:17  
Exactly. I mean, the whole point of understanding what leads up to a adoption falling apart, is to understand where our opportunities are, that we can intervene and support the family and support the child and provide needed strategies. So all of that. The reason we want to understand is where can we intervene? How predictable from what you have seen are these stages of often we talk stages, it's possible for some to get kind of smushed together and some to be skipped entirely. But generally speaking, Dr. Williams, how predictable is it that this trajectory without intervention and is going to lead to a dissolution.

Speaker 2  10:03  
So the research doesn't point to a number. But what we know is if there's anything that's going wrong, and you don't see any light at the end of the tunnel, there's no intervention. And I'm glad that you said that, that without intervention, we can almost say that almost 100% of things can always go wrong. Because we're not seeing any positives. We're not seeing any turn around, maybe in child behavior, because it's without assistance. So when we think about just the negative trajectory, and if we're going down a negative path, and I don't ever see any change, then I'm almost 100% Certain to disrupt because there's nothing to look forward to.

Dawn Davenport  10:45  
Exactly, yeah, you know, it is typical to feel like, whoa, I've gotten in over my head, this is a lot harder than I thought. This wasn't what I was hoping it would be. But if we could get in at that point, and support families, that's when we can hopefully see them be able to turn around. I want to stop here for just a moment to send out a very warm thank you to our listeners that are returning this week. And I want to welcome our new listeners to your recommendations for this podcast to your friends, is one of the best way to help us get the word out about creating a family.org what we do and about this podcast, please help us spread the word by letting others know that we exist as an organization, but also that this podcast exists. Thank you. Okay, back to pet store. Why do families struggle post adoption to the point of considering dissolving the adoption? And before you answer I wanted to read a quote from the Child Welfare League of America new Compendium, it's a book chapter on adoption. And it's in the section on trending topics and issues related to disruption and dissolution. And this is a direct quote, studies that have examined the risk factors related to disruption and dissolution reveal multiple reasons for post adoption instability, including factors related to the children, their families, and the agencies. I like that because it equally identifies that there are three characters in the story, so to speak, and all three need to be looked at for their role in order to help them. So let's start if you can share a key relate to either the child, the family or the agency, what are some risk factors that you see in in any of those? Well, that's

Speaker 3  12:36  
a really excellent way of framing it. And also in that book chapter, which I had the privilege of working on. We also want to not only look at the children, the families and the agencies, but we also want to look at the communities. So we say that we don't want families to give up on children, agencies to give up on families and communities not to give up on agency. So let's be sure that we come back. But the risk factors, it really all comes back to the front end work. It's the way that we recruit families, the message that we give them about what it means to be an adoptive family. Certainly shell can talk about what we call time traveling, looking at a family over time. So they make it all excited about what's happening, we're going to have a child join our family, not thinking about what happens when that child is a year old, or three years old, or five years old, or 10 years older. And so and I certainly can speak to that because my children are adults, and we're still taking care of them. So we want to think about what is it that we can help families think about regarding the children? What can we think about that they need to be prepared to do it not only the parents, but everybody in the family? But what is it the agencies have to do in order to have a workforce that's qualified to be able to find and keep these families. That's one stream of it. The other part of it is also how do we prepare the children. So even if it's an infant, or it's a toddler, or a grade school aged child, we also have to do the work with the children. So many adoptions now also are open, then we also have to think about what we call the constellation. It used to be the triad, you know, the child, the birth family, the adoptive family, or maybe even the worker. Now, it's also everybody that's connected to that family. So we have to look at what we can do around prevention and support for the children, for all the members of the family, the workforce in the agency, and then what do communities have to do to support the agencies that are taking care of his children? So we have to look at all of those groups, both prevention and intervention.

Dawn Davenport  14:41  
One of the things that I mean, creating a family is a nonprofit that provides trainings and we work with families and we have to own that one of the greatest challenges is helping families set realistic expectations and having them more fully understand the impact of trauma, I always come back when we see families struggling and realize that that family was likely had unrealistic expectations. Now, it may not be the agency's fault at all, sometimes people see what they want to see and hear what they want to hear. And so it's, you know, it's, I'm not casting blame here. But Dr. Williams, how can we help families manage expectations and form realistic expectations prior to the child joining the family?

Speaker 2  15:28  
One of the ways we set realistic expectations is we understand and like Eileen was saying, through training and the support that's provided, why is it that your family wants to adopt? What is our intention going into it, that takes us back to the honeymoon stage, right? If I paint a picture that says, This is what it's going to be because I need that for myself, because I'm fulfilling an intrinsic need, right? Something that's inside of me, then maybe they have an unrealistic expectation of what I'm going to forecast. So thinking about and having true conversations, maybe it is pairing with another adoptive parent, or an adoptive family, and having that there's also some therapeutic intervention that can happen along the way. So there's the family assessment, and really talking about what is the intention for joining a child with the family, and then looking at maybe the trauma history of the child, you can do your own trauma history. And if there are some things that come up there, then those are the things that you want to work on, and to really kind of right size, right? Am I looking at adoption? Am I looking at the family? Do I have perspective that tells me that I'm on the right track? I'm doing this for the right reasons?

Dawn Davenport  16:42  
Yeah. And I liked that you said, also looking at the trauma history of the parents. It's a two way street. And we as parents, and I speak as a parent, we bring our own issues to the table. And recognizing that is so so important. In this grouping of the factors. We have the parents, we have the child and we have the agency for the child. Let's talk about some of the issues that parents may see with children who have experienced trauma, loss, neglect or abuse in their background. And I'm gonna throw out there because I it's interesting to me, it surprises me because it seems obvious to me, but I don't think it is. physical issues are seldom the cause for an adaption failing. It's the emotional issues that are the hardest that we have seen for parents to deal with. Dr. Pastore, what are some of the child behavioral issues caused by trauma, neglect, abuse loss, that may be hard for parents to deal with?

Speaker 3  17:45  
Well, we start with a work tool that we've used over many years, I remember creating it when our son was 10. And he had joined our family coming from residential and my parents could not understand why he wasn't 10 you with an acting tan. And so we created a work tool that was called the jigsaw puzzle child. And we looked at all the aspects of a child. So the agency may say, Well, we're going to talk to you about a five year old, but there was nothing about this child that was five. So a 10 year old may be 10. For example, in our family, he was 10 in years, but he was emotionally an infant, he had no trust ability. He didn't read or write not when words so it was preschool. And then you have to look at cognitively where they are emotionally, socially, you have to look at whether there's an ethnic match, you have to look at all of those different aspects and life experiences. Well, some of which we don't know. So we have to move beyond looking at a child's chronological age, looking at all these factors in the child's development. And then we have to look at so what can we predict over time? If you have a 10 year old who doesn't read or write, what can we expect by the time they're 1415, or 16. So when we time travel, as we mentioned earlier, we have to think about what behaviors may look to a family as quote, not normal, or frustrating and difficult. But really, given the child's trauma history. They are predictable. And I'm really glad, John, that you mentioned the part of that physical, because for some families a match in terms of what a child looks like, physically, many, many years ago, we had one of our gurus and adoption, who wrote a book called ears like Uncle Harry, I think it was called. And the idea was, well, if you just have ears like your Uncle Harry, when Uncle Harry passes, we're going to inherit a whole lot of money. So we're looking for a child who matches who looks like us. But you know, you can have a baby who may be very little and turned out to be a foot taller than everybody else in the family. So when the family portrait, it doesn't quite look the same. Is that an expectation? We don't know. And then and Michelle can speak to this much more eloquently. What does it mean for the other children in the family to have The sibling who doesn't like sports, when everybody else in the family or soccer fanatics, or you have a family that really likes to read, and this child just wants to do athletics. So there has some work that's been done. And know that like US and US did it some years ago in their field guide, they talked about a format that you can use, where you can look at Children's characteristics and families characteristics, and whether or not those are predictable in terms of stability or not stability. And of course, we want to focus on what makes family stable more than what makes them not, and then work toward the stability. So all of those factors have to be considered

Dawn Davenport  20:41  
alike, which are saying about, you have to look at not just where the child is right now. But where the child would likely be. We have seen a number of families who have unrealistic expectations of what the child is able to do academically, it's more or less the belief that we bring them into our home. And then yes, at 10 is not reading and writing, but we're going to be a language rich home, we're going to read to him, we're going to get him tutors. And so when he's 14, or 15, he will have caught up when the chances are good that a child who is not reading and writing at 10 is not going to catch up. And so shifting our parents expectation to what success means both from a parent's standpoint and also from a person and their child's standpoint. So yes, very much so. And Dr. Pesto alluded to the issues between families. And we've talked about issues related to the parents issues related to the child, and then also issues related to the family unit. And this is one of Dr. Williams specialties. She has both the lived experience of having a child already in the family when your children were brought in. But Dr. Williams, do you see the issues with children already in the family, and issues between the new children being brought in and children in the family are a red flag for a family that's going to struggle,

Speaker 2  22:01  
it always needs to be a consideration. So as we think about the children that are already there, we think about the family unit and how cohesive it already is. And if there are challenges that exist already, before a child is brought in, it's only going to exacerbate the challenges that have been apparent there. I'll give an example. There may be a family where the children are already struggling, maybe they're struggling academically, and another child is brought in that child is also struggling academically. But the time effort and energy now is, you know kind of placed on the child that has joined the family versus the child that's already been there. So there seems to be some shift that happens when new children join families and all of the focus being there, because they have maybe a social worker, or individuals that have continued to be in the child's life from previously. So as that happens, one child gets more attention. And it looks as if it's unequal. And that can cause some challenges between the children as well as with children and parents. So that is a sign and something that you have to really continue to look at. Because when you ask the children, they may say, I never wanted to adopt or I never wanted this.

Dawn Davenport  23:11  
Right. Now, this was your idea, not mine. I gotta told you, this is gonna go down.

Unknown Speaker  23:17  
Absolutely.

Speaker 3  23:18  
And John, I think building on that, really, you can think about we just saw in our community, they got nonprofits together, and they all put together backpacks for the kids who were in foster care status, joining foster adoptive families, but not for the other children in the family. So that workout, I mean, it has to be everybody. And so that's one point. The other one was that we're really glad that you use the word issue. And that's something that I also learned from Michelle, we're reframing, you know, we have a lot of words that we've changed. You know, we don't say home study, it's not the home, we say family assessment, and we say joining and so on. But we also don't say issue, because sometimes, what did I learn that when people hear issue, they think it's you. And so what we mean those challenges, and adoption is about challenges, and they're about challenges that we can meet. We don't use the word problems anymore. I mean, it's a challenge and all families have them. And we're going to normalize them, so that it doesn't focus on pointing the finger at anybody but really lending a hand. And I hope that we will get into again, what communities can do to support families who are expanding their constellation.

Dawn Davenport  24:26  
We absolutely will. All right, as long as we're talking about some of the challenges. Let me also say that we have to acknowledge that agencies differ on the type of resources and support that they offer families, post the child joining the family and post the adoption finalization. And that's a huge piece and also, you know, quite frankly, the lack of insurance coverage for mental health is also a not insubstantial piece. I love this quote. Again, this is from the Chapter in Child Welfare League of America is new Compendium book. And Dr. Pastore was involved in this. And this is a direct quote, it's difficult to arrive at a neat summary statement about factors that predict disruptions. Because the picture is so complex, involving the children and their histories, the adoptive families and their circumstances and service factors, which is such a wonderful way of summarizing exactly what we have just said, there are so many things that are tied in. Alright, something Dr. Pastore that you mentioned, was preparing the child for them to adapt the new talk joining the family preparing that child for the realities of joining a new family of being adopted, even if it's a guardianship, what are some things that are effective that you have seen at work to help prepare this new child for the realities of joining this new family?

Speaker 3  25:59  
We have to again go back to the impact of loss and trauma on a child's development. And we have to look at that child's jigsaw puzzle. So where is that child developmentally in terms of social emotional, cultural match with the family, ethnic identity, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, life experience, we have to look at all of that as much as we know. And sometimes we don't know that. And we have to be prepared for that. Just sometimes as we give birth to children, we don't always know how they're going to come out. And so we have to be prepared for that. So I think looking at that we don't always know everything, then we have to think about what is it that the child's expectations are given the child's age and stage of development? You know, a lot of us use, I'm really glad you use the word new. And we have to think about what does that mean to a child? I'm a new child in a family. What does it mean to the other children? What does it mean to the parents? What does it mean to the extended family members? And of course, we try to go person first. So it's a child who's joining a family, what has been that child's experiences with other families. And also, we have to think about coming back to the workforce. How many workers has that child had caseworkers, social workers, and mental health support people. So we want to make sure that everybody is working together to look at what expectations are and expectations over time for everybody from a family systems perspective. And I mean, we have to think about that, because sometimes children can't talk or they won't talk. And so we have to look at strategies and tools such as life books, life bags, life boxes, not only for the child who's joining, but their children as well. And to ask families about what they see as their expectations are over time, and what the child's may be, as well, again, according to the child's age and stage of development, and also what's available in a child's record, which may or may not be available as well,

Dawn Davenport  27:56  
right? Yes, much of the information that we would love to have is simply not available. So we have to move forward based on what we have. Creating a family has a terrific curriculum for foster adoptive and kinship families. It is interactive, it can be used either online or in person, either one. And it's a video based curriculum. So each curriculum comes with a video a facilitator guide, a handout, an additional resource sheet, we have a library of these curriculums, we currently have 25 in the library, it covers every imaginable topic, you could think you would want to either train, foster adoptive or kinship families on or utilize that same skill building in your support group. So check it out at creating a family dot for hover over training and click on Support Group curriculum. Now, back to the show. I now want to move to talking about the steps to stability. This is on focusing on a strength based approach to supporting families. Dr. Williams, can you tell us what the steps to stability are? And then explain them?

Speaker 2  29:04  
Sure. When we started the interview, one of the things you introduced was the creating stability during change model of practice for resource family disruption prevention and retention. And the steps of stability really came out of that model of practice that was born there. And what we looked at are the stages of disruption and then being a deficit model. And as we talked before, it drills down to disruption. And there's really no preventative steps to take you back to a positive place. But in the steps to stability if we look at creating stability before families are having the challenges, we give a realistic picture of what joining a new child with the family may look like and what the impacts may be. There's the reality piece of that that says every child and family has its own loss and trauma history. And as those loss and trauma histories come together, then we have to have Some way to mitigate or to understand how are we going to work together as a family given whether it be the distance or the challenges that we've experienced in our own life? So what we want to do on the steps to stability in this is a model that goes from the bottom to the top right. So the steps of stability go from top to bottom, but we've reversed it and put it in a different order. So from the bottom to the top step one is to confirm our commitment. What is our commitment to being stable to being a family? What's the commitment to being impactful in a positive way to the child's lifetime? Number two is to reevaluate our expectations. We always go back to reevaluating what did I think was going to happen at this stage? Or what did I think I was going to be right now. And if that does not match my thoughts, and my expectations in the everyday life, then I have to go back and I have to right size that. So did I get ahead of myself I did, I think it was going to be all happy. And now that I have a challenge. And I say, you know, I'm not feeling so good about this anymore. And maybe I don't want to do it. And if I look at my expectations, and I say you know what, I'm exactly where I should be in a new relationship with a child that is joining the family, or that's been here for a long time, given their history, and ages and stages of development, then maybe I'll get back on the right track. And then after that, we're going to expect that challenges and setbacks are going to happen. If I can expect that I'm going to have a challenge, and that I will be able to overcome it, then I have a better outlook and attitude when the challenges arise. No matter what the challenge is, it's something that I said, I prepare myself we prepare our families, this is going to be a little bit challenging, because we don't know one another or because something else has come up, we turn a different age, we have some different ideas and thoughts. And as our thoughts and ideas are impacted, then we have to figure out ways to meet those. Then we go back, we affirm our team skills and support. And as we affirm the team skills and support, what is my family doing? And what do I have already? Who do I have in my life that can assist me when I am having a challenge.

Dawn Davenport  32:10  
And that would include people from the agency, I would assume that we need to be affirming their support

Speaker 2  32:16  
100%, we are able to say ask you for help is courageous. And if asking for help is courageous, who can I ask and how many individuals can come in and help me whether it be from the agency or the community, because we do need the support of everyone, we don't have an expectation that only one person is going to assist us. Or that I'm going to do this by myself.

Dawn Davenport  32:36  
Yeah, nobody can do it by himself. This is not a failure on your part, you're stepping up to a challenging job. And you have every right to expect support from your team. Yes.

Speaker 2  32:47  
And that brings us to the next step. And this is number five is we trust the process. You have to trust the process, we understand and know that we made the decision for a reason you're in the exact right place that you should be at that time, the children are progressing the exact way that they should in some time progression is a little slower than you may want it. So if we have an expectation that everything's going to be perfect, we actually have to dial back a bit, trust the process and just be in it and be grateful and thankful that we are there because we are learning we're in the process of learning. And the sixth, the last one is to embrace the change. We embrace the change. We know that because we're in the right place, everything is going to work out and we celebrate all of the small incremental wins. Hmm,

Dawn Davenport  33:38  
accepting that it may very well be the old adage, two steps forward one step back, if we can normalize that and say, yep, okay, this time you took one step forward to back but that's okay. That's part of the process next time, maybe? Who knows? Maybe you'll take two steps forward, only one back. Yeah. Excellent. I love that. And I love the focus on the positive what we can actually do. Alright, so now we're moving to the part where I want to talk about prevention and intervention strategies. Dr. Pastore, if you could start us off by talking about strategies that in your work and in Dr. Williams work with your model, what are some of the strategies that you have seen work for families that would be implementing the steps to stability who are struggling right now, but we want to get them supported and back with their commitment?

Speaker 3  34:34  
Well, it starts with organization. We can't be families and get connected with children without the support of agencies. And so one of the ways that we do that is that we reverse our organizational chart, and we put instead of directors at the top, we put children at the top, and then we say so when our agency children are supported by families And how do the families do that the families are supported by your line staff? How are the line staff supported? They're supported by supervisors? How are the supervisors supported? They're supported by program managers? How are they supported to do this adoption work. They're supported by directors, and directors supported by boards. So what our boards of directors and nonprofits doing to ensure that their supports for families, and that we have a skilled workforce, and that takes us back to the community. So if we really believe that families are the best place to raise children, and we do, and then there's all kinds of families to do that, whether adoption, kinship or foster, then what are we doing as a community to ensure that we have those supports, whether they're in mental health, public private partnerships, and all the collaborations we talk about? So before we can even get to, what are we going to do for that individual child and family, we have to look at the structure of an agency and the agency in the community, and how we're supporting our workforce to have what we call the three S's, the strength, the skills and the supports, we all need them so that we end up with the ability, the resources, and then we'll have the willingness to go forward. So it really is a team effort. And another one of our mantras that we use a lot is to say that one of the ways that we minimize trauma is by maximizing teamwork, because we really believe that if you go back and you do an analysis of when we have a disruption or a dissolution, it could be possibly that what happened was, we maximize trauma, because we minimize the teamwork. And if we go back and we look at that, then we can see it going that way in our hearts. And we also know from our practice, that to be a family and to be a professional in this world. It's really a privilege. It's not a right. But for children to be protected and nurtured and be connected to lifetime nurturing. And during relationships. That's a right, not a privilege. And we really have to think about that mindset. But it all comes back to what are agencies and communities doing together to support children in all their families.

Dawn Davenport  37:05  
So, Dr. Williams, there are families who are listening to this, and they're struggling, and they need to know where to go for help. Where would you suggest, list a couple of different places where they can go for help, perhaps a see themselves going down the negative path of the stages of a dissolution, and they recognize themselves in one of those, but they want to be able to turn it around. Where do they go for help?

Speaker 2  37:36  
Well, here in California, where I am their post adoption support,

Dawn Davenport  37:41  
most states have some type of post adoption support, not all but most, right.

Speaker 2  37:45  
So as we think about what those post adoption supports are, parents and families want to get themselves connected to a network, whether it's a network of trusted individuals that are supportive of themselves are supportive of them, that maybe they've been here all along, you want to get connected to a network, maybe there's a therapist that you've been connected to in the past, and you begin to have conversations, again, with trusted individuals about the challenges that are being experienced. So if we look at the whole family, is there someone or an entity that is trusted, that you can go and begin to have a candid, courageous, caring conversation about maybe self esteem for a parent, the challenges that the children are facing in California, we have what's called adoption, promotion support services, and they provide a range of services that help families identify exactly what the challenges are, how to work through those challenges, and how to stay connected. You may be through a church, or at other organizations that are there in the community. But it is absolutely someone that's trusted. Because as we pointed out in the stages of disruption, if you go public with a person that says, I don't know why you're doing this anyway, then it only exacerbates the problem. So we want agencies community resources, and if we begin to talk to other families, then there may be some resources that they point you to maybe it's a group, and you begin to have a group of parents that start talking about how can we support and help one another. And also agencies like create a family? So we're really thinking about how do we there are podcasts, there are new things on the internet that we can continue to use that we have at our disposal. Sometimes we just have to make sure that we put ourselves in a place where we are open and receptive to the support that our community has. And then we reach out a hand so that someone can reach their hand back for their support.

Dawn Davenport  39:42  
Let me stop here and just say I know that this conversation is challenging, but it is also so necessary to help parents and caregivers. And we have resources free resources to help you be the best parent possible to your child. Our partners that Jackie being Family Foundation has Sponsored these 12 free courses. So check them out at Bitly slash jPf support, that's bi T dot L y slash JBf support and let others know about him as well. Thanks. Dr. Pastore. Some of the people who are listening will think I see myself on the path to dissolution, perhaps they have already crossed the threshold of making it public. And they really are emotionally giving up. What steps should a parent take to make it less damaging to the child? At this point, we're assuming that dissolution is likely, they still have another act of parenting that they can take. And that is anything they can do to make it less damaging to the child. Any thoughts on that?

Speaker 3  40:47  
We want to think about, again, if we can help them even from the beginning, think about minimizing the trauma. So you know, if we could reframe the word damage, and think about that we are people that we don't want to think about it as damaging, and we think Carson furniture get damaged, but we get hurt. So what can we do as people to minimize the hurt and it's the emotional hurt the physical hurt, who was everybody in the constellation that we can go to? I mean, let's just say that our advocacy isn't working, that we haven't connected to an agency that has made that organizational commitment to supporting families that we haven't had the strength, the skills and the supports, that the team needs to have, that we haven't had a model of practice. That is the kind that if shell has talked about. So then what we have to do is remember, this is hard, no shame, no blame, if we have reached out to try to reach out to other families, to other support groups, to the national organizations such as yours. We're creating a family there's the national foster parent association has lots of adoptive families. If you could go to North American Council on Adoptable, children, Child Welfare League of America, there's so many organizations, also and look at your state and local association. So reach out to someone who can lend a hand pointed finger, really think about what can I do to minimize the trauma, who can I get to be on my team, but stay away from the blame, stay away from the shame and really think about what we can do for everybody in the family so that it is not hurtful. And sometimes if it does happen afterwards, and there is a breakup, as in any relationship, whether it's in a divorce, there is an aftermath. And we have to think about what help we can get both for the adults in the family as well as the children and to make sure that those children have the supports that they need as well, so that they can become stronger and eventually get to where we need all children to be, which is connected to at least one adult, we know we've done our job well when that child is connected to one relationship that is going to be safe and nurturing and intended to be enduring. That is our mandate in child welfare. And we'll work with our families to ensure that they're part of that. So we hope that they will stay positive, go get the help they need. And if they can't reach out to one of these organizations to get us connected, we need the connections in order to be able to thrive.

Dawn Davenport  43:20  
Absolutely. All right. My last question is one that's frustrating and sad. But it is still the reality for many parents. Dr. Williams, what if the parent wants to dissolve the adoption in order to get the help in paying for the treatment that their child needs, but they still want to remain in the child's life, they're making a parenting decision that says I can't afford the treatment. If the child is back in foster care, the state will pay for this treatment that approach any thoughts on that and what parents can do at that point, in order to ensure that they are able to stay connected to the child?

Speaker 2  44:00  
Think in that regard, partnership and collaboration? We understand that there are some children that have extraordinary needs, and maybe they need a higher level of care. That's what came to my mind when you ask that question is the higher level of care that cannot be provided for a child within the family structure. And if that higher level of care is needed, then it is partnering with organizations and maybe an organization that can provide that higher level of care. As Eileen said, We want every child to be connected to at least one adult in their lives that can be there for the rest of their lives. And in the event that there is a disruption or dissolution, then knowing that what the plan is so really to plan for how the parent is going to stay involved. If there's an organization or an agency or maybe it's a residential, then what are the times where they can come to visit so that they can stay consistent because the treatment plan is not going to be without the parent. The treatment plan needs to be with the parent in volved in all of the significant individuals in that child's life, so there's some planning and preparation that needs to happen to ensure that families will stay connected to the best of their ability so that the child can continue to be supported.

Dawn Davenport  45:15  
It's not thank you so much, Dr. Eileen Pastore and Dr. Nisha Williams, for talking with us today about a topic that's quite frankly hard and that is adoption, dissolution and disruption.

Unknown Speaker  45:27  
Thank you so much for having us.

Dawn Davenport  45:28  
Thank you. You guys have heard me say this before and you're gonna hear me say it again. And that is, this show as well as everything we do here at creating a family would not happen without the support of our partners, which are agencies that believe in our mission. One of those is children's connection. They have been around for a very long time and been a supporter of the creating a family podcast, and organization for a very long time. Children's connection is an adoption agency providing services for domestic infant adoption, as well as embryo donation and adoption throughout the US. They also do home studies and post adoption support to families in Texas. Thank you so much children's connection

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