Creating a Family: Talk about Adoption, Foster & Kinship Care

Latest Episodes:

When Do I Tell My Child They Have Birth Siblings? - Weekend Wisdom Mar 15, 2025

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I have been listening to your podcast and supporting your mission for several years. We adopted our daughter at birth through an open adoption. We began caring for her on day two; she is now 9 years old. She knows she is adopted and has seen photos of her biological parents. Her parents had problems with addiction and the law. We only tell her, “They were not able to care for you.” She has not yet asked questions about her biological parents, but she does opine about being an only child. We have not yet told her about her full biological brother, the full brother who died from neglect as an infant, her five half-sisters, her biological grandmother, or that her biological father died a few years ago, having “fallen” off a bridge. She will obviously know everything eventually, but we are concerned about when and how to tell her.

Resources:

How to Find an Adoption Competent Therapist - resource page
Talking About the Difficult Parts of Your Child's History - online course
Building the Framework for Adopted & Foster Children to Process the Hard Parts of Their Stories - article
Talking about the Difficult Parts of Your Adopted Child’s History - older podcast interview

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Please leave us a rating or review. This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.
Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:

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Adopting Siblings: Issues to Consider Mar 12, 2025

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Are you considering adopting a sibling group? Join us for this interview with Deborah Bass Artis, MSW and Senior Program Director of Foster Care to Permanency with Children’s Home Society of NC.

In this episode, we discuss:

Why is it important to keep siblings together when placed for foster care or adoption?
Advantages to adopting siblings.
Special issues to consider
1. Thinking About Adopting a Sibling Group? Things to Consider First
2. Practical Tips for Fostering a Sibling Group
Integrating siblings with children already in the family
1. Involve children already in the family
2. Get your support network in place before you adopt
3. Suggested books for helping siblings understand adoption.
Parentified child
1. Tips for handling a parentified child.
  1. Parenting Tips for a Parentified Child
Overcoming unhealthy dynamics from their past
1. One child was the favorite in their previous family or families.
2. Sibling rivalry
When is it not a good idea to keep siblings together?
Consider your motivation carefully- be honest with yourself and your partner about your desire to adopt a sibling group.
Tips for parents adopting or fostering a sibling group
1. Educate yourself before opening your home to a sibling group- it always helps to have realistic expectations
2. Be patient with yourselves and the children- it’s a big adjustment for everyone.
3. Develop your support system ahead of time.
4. Take care of yourself. Spending time on things that are important to you is not selfish!
5. If married, ensure your marriage/partnership remains strong- it is the foundation of your family’s health.
6. If single, maintain your friendships. You need to have a life outside of your children.
7. Find individual time with each child in the family
8. Pay attention to each child’s interests and personality and create opportunities for those to grow. Don’t treat the sibling group as a unit.
9. Seek out professional support for the family when needed.

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My Child Tells Others We Aren't Meeting Her Basic Needs - Weekend Wisdom Mar 08, 2025

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Question: I have a daughter who has dealt with trauma from consistent experiences of neglect and abandonment. While our home is loving and supportive, she continues to exhibit a victim mentality and has a hard time taking responsibility for her actions. She's a sweet girl, but she makes comments to others that insinuate she is not having her most basic needs met, which is simply not the case. How can we help her, and how should we be responding to her self-victimization?

Resources:

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Help, I Don't Think I Can Continue With This Adoption! Mar 05, 2025

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Are you really struggling with your adoption and feeling you've made a huge mistake? Listen to this interview with Lindsay Lanham, MSW. She works at Holt International and is the author of the online article “Predictors of Adoption Disruption and Dissolution: A Literature Review.”

In this episode, we cover:

Difference between an adoption disruption and adoption dissolution.
What causes an adoption to fail? What causes parents to say: “Help, I don’t think I can continue this adoption?”
Child-related factors:
- Child’s age
- Child’s behavior
  - Aggression or children who sexually act out
- Are sibling placements more stable?
Adoptive parent-related factors:
- Demographic characteristics? (age, marital status, parenting experience, income, race)
- Parental expectations
- Parenting style
- Relationship prior to the adoptive placement
- Characteristics of parents in successful adoptions
Adoption professional-related factors:
- Identify problems quickly and provide support
- How to address children who have experienced sexual abuse. “It is recommended that social workers universally prepare families for behaviors associated with sexual abuse trauma and the possible impact of sexual abuse. Adoptive families should have the language necessary to speak about child sexual abuse and know how to access supportive resources in their community, such as child advocacy centers, prior to placement.”
What should parents do when they realize that the adoption isn’t going as they had hoped/planned?
- Identify the problem quickly and get support.
- Reset expectations
- Self-care
- Get help
What should parents do if they are reaching the point where they want to dissolve an adoption?

Resource: Predictors of Adoption Disruption and Dissolution: A Literature Review

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Coping with Stillbirth After Adoption Match - Weekend Wisdom Mar 01, 2025

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Question: I've been an adoption social worker for almost seven years and just experienced my 2nd situation where the birth mother in a match had a stillbirth after selecting a family through our agency. Both situations were such a difficult loss for both parties. I'm curious if you've heard of others who experienced this unusually tragic type of loss during adoption. I'm not sure how common it is, especially given the rate of stillbirths is 1 in 175 births in the U.S. How can adoption professionals (on the adoptive parent AND birth parent side) best walk through such a situation with their clients?

Resources:

Creating a Family Online Support Group
How can you deal with your feelings of grief after a stillbirth? (March of Dimes)
Stillbirth: Surviving Emotionally (American Pregnancy Association)
Find a Local Chapter - The Compassionate Friends

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Evaluating Risk Factors in Domestic Adoption Feb 26, 2025

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Are you thinking about adopting a baby? Are you worried about what risk factors exist that you should know about? Join us to talk about these issues with Dr. Lindsay Terrell, a pediatrician at Duke University Medical Center and an Assistant Professor in their Department of Pediatrics. And James Fletcher Thompson, a South Carolina attorney with extensive experience in adoption.

In this episode, we discuss:

Lack of prenatal care.
- What is covered in prenatal care and how might a lack of prenatal care impact a baby?
Prematurity
- What causes a premature birth?
Prenatal exposure
- Alcohol
  - What are some red flags that a mom might have abused alcohol during her pregnancy?
  - Does the degree of impact differ depending on when in the pregnancy alcohol was consumed?
  - What are the long- and short-term impacts of alcohol consumption on a child exposed prenatally?
  - Creating a Family’s Prenatal Substance Exposure Workshop for Parents
- Opioids
  - List of opioid drugs in increasing degree of strength
    - Codeine.
    - Hydrocodone (Vicodin, Hycodan)
    - Morphine (MS Contin, Kadian)
    - Oxycodone (Oxycontin, Percoset)
    - Hydromorphone (Dilaudid)
    - Heroin
    - Fentanyl (Duragesic)
    - Methadone, Suboxone
  - Does the degree of impact differ depending on when in the pregnancy the opioid was used?
  - Does the degree of long-term impact differ depending on whether the baby was born dependent or with a diagnosis of Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) or Neonatal Opioid Withdrawal Syndrome (NOWS)?
  - What are the long- and short-term impacts of opioid exposure on a child exposed prenatally?
- Cocaine
- Marijuana
- Methamphetamine
- Polysubstance abuse
- Creating a Family has extensive resources to help parent a child exposed to opioids prenatally.
Sexually Transmitted Infections
- What are the common STIs?
- What are the risks of each of them to the unborn child or newly born child?
Mental Health Issues
- What is the genetic connection for the following mental health disorders? How heritable are these mental illnesses?
  - Anxiety disorders, including panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and phobias.
  - Mood disorders: Depression, bipolar disorder
  - Personality disorders (antisocial, borderline, narcissistic)
  - Psychotic disorders, including schizophrenia
  - ADHD
Legal Risk Factors
- What are the most common legal risk factors when adopting an infant through private adoption?

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How to Connect with Birth Mom with Mental Illness? - Weekend Wisdom Feb 22, 2025

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Question: I've been listening to your podcast for a few years! Our 10-year-old kinship adopted daughter has lived with us since she was 2 months old. For a variety of reasons, there hasn't been any in-person visits or phone calls with her birth mom (my sister). Communication has been limited to holiday/birthday cards and gifts. My sister has schizophrenia and bipolar disorders. Because she has been stable on her medications and her behaviors are typically within a somewhat 'predictable' range, we're thinking it's time to begin an in-person relationship. We're planning on writing a letter to my sister to tell her our thoughts on all of this and establish some ground rules and boundaries. After she has some time to digest that letter, my wife and I plan to meet with her in person (without our daughter) to firm up plans, expectations, etc. My questions are:

What are some generally good boundaries to set up?
How can we help prepare my sister for potentially tough questions from our daughter? (My sister is in denial that anything is wrong with her.)
How can we prepare our daughter for all of this?
How can we do this in a way that doesn't feel like we're wagging our finger at my sister and being 'above her'?

Resources:

Working with Birth Parents for the Child's Best Interest (Resource page)
Evaluating Risk Factors in Adoption (Resource page)
Finding an Adoption-Competent Therapist (Resource page)

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Courage & Resilience: A Foster Child's Story of Success Feb 19, 2025

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How do some kids survive a life of poverty, homelessness, abuse, and foster care and eventually thrive? We talk about courage & resilience with David Ambroz who is a national poverty and child welfare expert and advocate and the author of the memoir, A Place Called Home. He was recognized by President Obama as an American Champion of Change. Currently serving as the Head of Community Engagement (West) for Amazon, Ambroz previously led Corporate Social Responsibility for Walt Disney Television, and has served as president of the Los Angeles City Planning Commission as well as a California Child Welfare Council member. After growing up homeless and then in foster care, he graduated from Vassar College and later earned his J.D. from UCLA School of Law. He is a foster dad and lives in Los Angeles, CA.

In this episode, we discuss:

Poverty and Homelessness:
- His story.
- School
- What made a difference?
- What should adults who encounter or work with homeless children/youth know?
Foster Care:
- His story.
- Youth who identify as LGBTQ+ are overrepresented in foster care (Human Rights Campaign, 2015). While approximately 5 percent of the general population is estimated to be LGBTQ+, studies estimate that about 30 percent of youth in foster care identify as LGBTQ+. Why are these young people over represented in child welfare? LGBTQ+ youth are 1.5 -2 times more likely to have a foster placement failure.
- What would you want foster parents to know?
What made the difference in your eventually succeeding? (Going to Vassar and UCLA Law School.)
The lack of available treatments for mental illness.
Why did you become a foster parent?
Why did you title the book “A Place Called Home?”

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Can a Non-Native Family Adopt an Indian Child? - Weekend Wisdom Feb 15, 2025

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Question: This was a question from someone in South Dakota. She says, "I haven't listened to all your back episodes, but can you address ICWA, the Indian Child Welfare Act, as it pertains to adoption? I live in a state where the majority of children in foster care are Native Americans, and ICWA, the Indian Child Welfare Act, is confusing and divisive. At the end of the day, I just want the children I care for to be safe. I understand the reason for the law, but I hate when the comments on an ICWA story about adoption accuse foster care providers of kidnapping.

Resources:

Indian Child Welfare Law Center - ICWLC.org
Child Welfare Information Gateway - Info on ICWA

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Legal Process of Domestic Adoption: What You Need to Know Before You Adopt Feb 12, 2025

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Are you considering adopting a baby? To understand what is involved legally, listen to this podcast with James Fletcher Thompson, a South Carolina attorney with extensive experience in adoption.

In this episode, we discuss:

What are some of the differences in domestic infant adoption?
1. Agency and independent (direct placement) adoptions.
2. Relative adoptions. (grandparents, aunt/uncles, step-parent).
3. Infants or young children adopted from foster care.
4. In-state and interstate adoptions.
5. Adoptions governed by the federal Indian Child Welfare Act.
Adoption is governed by state law
1. Do the adoptive parents have to comply with the laws of the state where the expectant parent resides, where the baby is born, or where they reside?
2. How do federal laws affect adoption?
3. How does the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children affect adoption?
What are some of the reasons parents make an adoption plan for their child?
Some of the legal issues in adoption from the birth parents' perspective.
1. Voluntary vs involuntary relinquishment or termination of parental rights
2. When can an expectant mother voluntarily relinquish her parental rights?
3. When can an expectant father voluntarily relinquish his parental rights?
4. Do the expectant parents have to have their own legal representations?
5. What if the expectant parent is a minor?
6. How long after they sign the papers do the birth parents have to change their mind?
7. Do they have to have a reason to change their mind?
8. What happens if the expectant mom cannot or will not identify the baby's father?
9. Is counseling important?
Some of the legal issues in adoption from the adoptive parents' perspective.
1. The home study/background check requirement.
2. Can work with an adoption agency or an adoption attorney.
3. What is the process if the agency/attorney finds the expectant parent who is considering placing her baby for adoption?
4. What is the process if the prospective adoptive parent finds the expectant parent?
5. Can adoptive parents “advertise” to find expectant mothers who are considering placing their baby for adoption?
6. What is a legal risk adoption?
7. What rights do the adoptive parents have before the expectant parents relinquish their rights?
8. What are some factors that affect the cost of adoption?
  1. In-state vs. interstate
  2. Expectant mother support
  3. Expectant father identification and cooperation.
  4. Indian Child Welfare Act
  5. Biological father in active military service
Pre-Birth/Pre-Placement Process
1. May be able to meet in person to get to know one another.
2. How much information is exchanged about both the expectant parents and adoptive parents? Medical history, finances, etc.
3. How can adoptive parents know if they are being given all the information-full disclosure?
4. How can expectant parents know if they are being given all the information?
What is meant by "Open Adoption"?
1. Is open adoption legally enforceable?
Post-Birth Process
1. When is the adoption usually finalized?
2. Who makes medical decisions for the newborn before finalization?
3. Do both birth parents and adoptive parents appear in court for the adoption finalization?
4. How is changing the birth certificate handled?
5. How can adoptive parents get a copy of the original birth certificate for their child?
6. How do adoptive parents get a social security number for their adopted child?
7. Do adoptive parents need to have any specific legal paperwork to prove that they can make medical decisions for the child?
8. What is the role of Medicaid?
9. Can the child be placed on the adopting parent’s