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

Latest Episodes:

Adoptions in the US: Who is Adopting and How are the Kids Doing? Aug 17, 2022

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We talk with Ryan Hanlon, with National Council for Adoption, about the largest survey of adoptive parents ever conducted. We talk about who adoptive parents are, the needs of the kids adopted, and so much more.
In the episode, we cover:

Who is adopting in the US? How are they similar and how do they differ from the general population of parents in relation to income and education level?
What are the primary motivations for parents to adopt? Does it differ based on domestic infant adoption, international adoption, and foster care adoption?
What type of special needs or diagnoses do adopted children have?
- How well are adoptive parents meeting these needs?
How are adopted kids doing in school?
What degree of openness or contact with birth families is common for infant adoption, intercountry adoption, and adoptions from foster care?
How do adoptive parents view their relationship with birth families?
How common are attachment issues in adoption and what factors contribute to attachment problems?
How are parents meeting the needs of transracially adopted children?
How satisfied are adoptive parents with the decision to adopt? Knowing what they know now, would they do it again?

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

Weekly podcasts
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Resource pages on all aspects of family building

Epigenetics in Fertility and Infertility Treatment Aug 10, 2022

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How can epigenetic changes affect your fertility or the health of your child conceived by fertility treatment? We talk with Dr. Jason Franasiak, a board certified Obstetrician Gynecologist, board certified Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility specialist, board certified High Complexity Laboratory Director in Embryology and Andrology, and lead physician of RMA’s Marlton Clinic and Lab in South Jersey. He has authored and contributed to over 100 peer reviewed publications, published chapters and abstracts. He serves on the Editorial Board for Fertility and Sterility and the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

In this episode, we cover:

What is epigenetics?
What factors can influence or affect the epigenome?
Can we “see” epigenetic changes?
How do epigenetic factors impact our health?
What are the genetic and epigenetic factors associated with female infertility?
What are the genetic and epigenetic factors associated with female PCOS?
What are the genetic and epigenetic factors associated with endometriosis?
What are the genetic and epigenetic factors associated with primary ovarian insufficiency?
What are the genetic and epigenetic factors associated with male infertility?
How could epigenetics affect modifications in invitro fertilization and invitro embryo development?
Imprinting disorders
Do environmental factors affect epigenetics?
What are epigenetic disorders?
Are children conceived by IVF more likely to have epigenetic disorders?
Can epigenetic changes be heritable across generations?

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Helping Our Kids Overcome a Traumatic Background Aug 03, 2022

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We know our kids have experienced trauma, but how can we help them overcome this trauma to become healthy happy adults. We talk about resilience and overcoming an adverse beginning with Dr. Julian Ford and Dr. Amanda Zelechoski. Dr. Ford is a clinical psychologist and Professor of Psychiatry and Law at the University of Connecticut where he directs two Treatment and Services Adaptation Centers in the National Child Traumatic Stress Network. Dr. Ford is past President of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies and has published more than 250 articles and book chapters and is the author or editor of 10 books. Dr. Amanda Zelechoski is a licensed clinical and forensic psychologist specializing in trauma. She is a professor of psychology and Director of Clinical Training at Purdue University Northwest.
In this episode, we cover:

What are some of the different types of events/situations that can be traumatic to a child?
Do different types of trauma affect children differently? Short term but intense trauma. Long term trauma at the hands of a primary caregiver. Neglect? Witnessing domestic violence? Prenatal trauma?
Why does early life trauma make it harder for kids to succeed at life?
What are some signs of trauma by age of child? Preschool? Elementary? Middle and High School? (learning, physical health, mental health, trouble with the law, etc.)
How to help our kids overcome their traumatic background and thrive?
How to rewire the neurons?
Triggers
Emotional regulation.
What can parents do to help their kids bounce back from their early life trauma?
What is the key element to resilience?
How can parents encourage resilience?
What role does temperament or personality play in resilience to trauma?
How long does it take for kids to “heal” from trauma?
Are there specific types of therapy that are more effective than others for helping children overcome trauma? Does it differ depending on the type of trauma?

Resources: Roadmap to Resilience Podcast series. www.roadmaptoreslience.org

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Surviving Childhood Trauma and Succeeding in Life: Panel of Former Foster Youth Jul 27, 2022

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We talk with a panel of former foster youth about their stories and what helped them survive their trauma and succeed in life.
In this episode, we cover:

What were the two most important things in helping you heal and ultimately thrive after your years in foster care and early life trauma?
Was their one or two people in your life who helped you overcome? What did they do to help?
Why do you think you became a survivor when others in similar positions did not?
If you are parents, how has your trauma from your early years impacted your parenting?
While you are successful and are “survivors” do you still carry some of the baggage from your childhood?
What advice would you give foster, adoptive, and kinship parents to be most helpful to the children in their care?

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How Do Teachers Understand Adoption (and What Can Parents Do About It?) Jul 20, 2022

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What do teachers know about adoption? What are the misperceptions? We talk with two researchers on this topic: Dr. Hal Grotevant, the Rudd Family Foundation Chair in Psychology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Dr. Abbie Goldberg, a Professor of Psychology and current Director of Women’s & Gender Studies at Clark University.
In this episode, we cover:

How knowledgeable were teachers in understanding the impact of trauma?
How knowledgeable were teachers in understanding the impact of attachment?
How knowledgeable were teachers in understanding the impact of adoption?
How knowledgeable were teacher sin understanding the impact of prenatal exposure?
Was there a perception that adopted kids were “troubled”?
What did they know about open adoption?
How accepting were teachers to the idea of modifying assignments to reflect diverse families, including those formed by adoption?
Do teachers know whether kids are adopted? Do they need to know? Do they feel comfortable asking this information?
Did teachers present lessons that included the diversity that adoption represents?
Does teacher training, either formal or in-service training, often include information on adoption?
What can parents do to help their child’s teacher be more adoption-aware or adoption-sensitive?
Where can listeners get more information on your research?
- The “Teachers and Adopted Children” Survey and the Factsheet for Teacher can be found here.

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Back to School with Foster & Adopted Kids Jul 13, 2022

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How can you help you child succeed at school? We talk with Heather Forbes, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and the owner of the Beyond Consequences Institute. She specializes on the impact of trauma and is the author of Help for Billy and Classroom 180.
In this episode, we cover:

What are some of the specific issues that parents of foster and adopted kids need to consider when their children go back to school?
Tips for helping kids transition into the new year.
Is it better to address potentially sensitive issues up front before they happen, when they might not even happen, or wait to see if it comes up? For example, family tree assignments.
What are some other potentially triggering school assignments for foster or adopted kids?
How much of your child’s story should you share with your child’s teacher? How to balance the desire to keep your child’s history for them to decide who knows and sharing sensitive information with the teacher to help them work with your child.
How to address the issue of your child’s past trauma and how it affects the way they behave?
Why is it important to have a trauma-informed school?
What can parents do to help their school and their child’s teacher become more trauma informed?
A disproportionate number of adopted and foster kids have been prenatally exposed to alcohol and drugs. How does this exposure impact their education and time at school?

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Endometriosis and Adenomyosis Jul 06, 2022

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We talk with Dr. Julie Lamb about Endometriosis and Adenomyosis. Dr. Lamb is a board-certified reproductive endocrinologist practicing at Pacific Northwest Fertility in Seattle and Bellevue and serves as clinical faculty at the University of Washington.
In this episode, we cover:
Endometriosis

What is endometriosis?
What are the symptoms of endometriosis?
What is the cause of endometriosis?
Is there a genetic link to endometriosis?
What factors increase your risk of developing endometriosis?
Does having endometriosis make you at greater risk for cancer?
How is endometriosis diagnosed?
Is a definitive diagnosis necessary before treatment?
How is endometriosis treated?
When should laparoscopic surgery to remove the endometriosis lesions be considered for the treatment of endometriosis?
When should hysterectomy be considered for treatment of endometriosis?
What are endometriomas?
What method is best for removing endometrial lesions: laser, electrical pulse, or other?
Is it possible to cure endometriosis?
What options are available to treat endometriosis on the fallopian tubes?
How does endometriosis affect fertility?
Does endometriosis affect the success of infertility treatment?

Adenomyosis

What is adenomyosis and how does it differ from endometriosis?
Adenomyosis vs. Fibroids
What are the symptoms of adenomyosis?
Is there a genetic link to adenomyosis?
How is adenomyosis diagnosed?
How is adenomyosis treated?
Does adenomyosis affect the success of infertility treatment?

General

More common in Black or Asian or Latina women?
Lupron
Can endometriosis be treated through diet or lifestyle changes?

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How to Raise an Anti-Racist Child Jun 29, 2022

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How can white parents raise anti-racist children in this time of violence against people of color and protests. We talk with Dr. Ann Hazzard, a clinical child psychologist who was on the faculty at Emory University in Atlanta and co-author of Something Happened in Our Town: A Child's Story about Racial Injustice; and Dr. Joy Harris, a Full-time Lecturer at Princeton Theological Seminary and co-author of The ABCs of Diversity: Helping Kids (and Ourselves!) Embrace Our Differences.
In this episode, we cover:

Embrace Race.org. Founded by black and mixed race parents to provide resources for raising black children.
One Talk at a Time https://www.caminoslab.org/onetalk Providing support for Latinx American, Asian American, African American, and Black youth and their families to have conversations about race and ethnicity. They have a separate section for Black, Asian, and Latinx parents.
What is the difference between not being a racist and being anti-racist?
What is wrong with saying and believing any of the following: "love will conquer all", “we are all one race-the human race", and “colorblind is best”.

Tip 1. Talk about Race

Racism thrives in silence. Why are many white parents silent on raise in general and within our families?
When do children start recognizes racial differences?
When should white parents start talking to their kids about race?
How to start the conversation?
Fantastic resources:
- Diverse Book Finder https://diversebookfinder.org/books/
- The Brown Bookshelf highlights Black voices writing for young readers.
- The Conscious Kid https://www.theconsciouskid.org/

Tip 2: Acknowledging & Celebrating Racial Diversity

Why is it important to acknowledge and celebrate racial diversity?
How to acknowledge and celebrate racial diversity?

Tip 3: Recognize systemic/institutionalized racism and white privilege

What do we mean by systemic racism?
What do we mean by white privilege?
How early do kids start defaulting that things associated with being white are better than being black?
How can parents address institutionalize racism with their children who will likely benefit from it?
How do we help teach our kids to understand power inequity so they can name it, unpack it, and dismantle it when it happens in the real world.

Tip 4: Talk about Violence Against People of Color and the Protests/Resistance

Something Happened in Our Town: A Child's Story about Racial Injustice
How much should we share with our children? At what age should we talk with them about these hard topics or is it better to shield them from such “grown up” problems?
Talk about How People Make Change in a democracy.
Not a one-time conversation.
Appropriate conversation for age and developmental level.
Should young children watch the news and videos.

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Kinship Caregiving: Managing Relationships with the Child's Parents Jun 22, 2022

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One of the hardest parts of being a kinship caregiver is navigating the relationship with the child's birth parent. We talk with Dr. Joseph Crumbley, a social worker, family therapist and author of “An Overview of Kinship Care”.
In this episode, we cover:

Creating a Family listening sessions with kinship caregivers in rural counties.
What are some of the complicating factors in the relationship between kinship caregivers and the child’s parents?
Grandparents and other caregivers sometimes feel that the child’s parents will threaten them with taking the child away if they do something that the parent disapproves of.
How to not enable the child’s parent but still have a relationship.
How to set healthy boundaries for the caregiver’s and child’s best interest when you have years of experience not setting healthy boundaries?
How to handle others in the family who interfere with the boundaries you’ve established?
I don't know if this is a question, but I really struggle with getting my kids opportunities to see their mom and siblings. All other siblings have been reunited, and I gather it's painful for their mom to see the two that were adopted by us (she surrendered her rights). Although we live relatively close to them, we have only managed 2-3 visits a year, mostly because of long periods of no responses to my texts or last-minute cancellations of planned visits. Sometimes our adopted kids can't even remember their siblings' names and it just breaks my heart. I'd love for them to have a closer relationship, but I have only limited control.
How to handle the anger, shame, guilt you feel at the child’s parents?
How to support co-parenting when the child’s parent is still not in a healthy place?
How to support reunification?

For more information please refer to www.drcrumbley.com.
This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them. Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:

Weekly podcasts
Weekly articles/blog posts
Resource pages on all aspects of family building

Please leave us a rating or review RateThisPodcast.com/creatingafamily

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Engaging Churches in the Foster Care Crisis Jun 15, 2022

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How can churches support kids in foster care and prevent children from entering foster care? Join us for our discussion with Jedd Medefind, President of the Christian Alliance for Orphans (CAFO) and Amber Knowles, the Executive Director of The Riverside Project (formerly Fostering Family).
In this episode, we cover:

We call it a foster care “crisis”. What does that term mean? What are the needs of foster children?
What is each organization doing to help engage churches in caring for foster kids?
What are ways people of faith can help improve the world of fostering if they know that they aren’t able to actually get licensed to foster?
How can churches provide support for people once they are parenting kids from foster care—either through fostering or adoption?
How can churches work to support birth families to help once the child has been reunified or to help stabilize them so that children don’t end up in care?
How can faith communities get involved with supporting foster families and foster kids?
The Jockey Being Family® Back to School Bash events will take place during the weekend of August 5-7th, 2022. These gatherings are geared towards foster and adoptive families with children 5-14 years of age. This is a chance to celebrate, educate, and empower families with a fun-filled and informative event as they prepare to head back to school for the upcoming year. Jockey Being Family® Foundation will provide grants for up to $3,000 to eligible organizations to help bring a Back to School Bash to your community. Together, we can be a much-needed support network for foster and adoptive families across the country. Email JBFBSB@jockey.com for additional information.
More Than Enough
Fostering Family and the Riverside Project
- Video: Riverside Project

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