Families come in all shapes and sizes and are formed in a variety of ways. Building a family through adoption is a unique experience that brings many joys and challenges. Adoption is a lifelong process and many individuals touched by adoption (adoptee, adoptive parents & birth parents) will benefit from additional supports at various times throughout their life. Adoption and permanency often create issues related to attachment, abandonment, grief/loss, identity formation and trust and may need to be processed at each developmental stage.
The adoption clinic offers supports and services to all individuals touched by adoption. Our team believe that children, youth, and young adults thrive within the context of healthy family relationships and with parents who have the skills to support children/youth whose behavior/needs may be hard to understand. We understand loss, attachment, trauma, and brain development, and are knowledgeable about the seven core issues associated with adoption. We are experienced in working with families who have adopted domestically from the child welfare system, internationally, and through kinship and customary care.
How do we help?
We offer a variety of clinical services to individuals touched by adoption and permanency, including adoptees, adoptive parents, birth parents and kinship and customary care providers.
Assessment:
- Trauma-informed psychodiagnostic assessment
- Trauma-informed psychoeducational assessment
- Trauma-informed comprehensive psychological assessment
- Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics (NMT) assessment to direct treatment planning
- Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) assessments
Treatment:
Our team provides evidence-based treatment that recognizes the unique complexities of adoption and the impact complex developmental trauma, attachment, identity, and other co-existing developmental challenges have on adoptees and their families. Our expert team works from an attachment-based, trauma-informed orientation that engages the entire family system in the treatment process and recognizes that healing, growth, and resilience occur within the context of healthy loving relationships.
Our clinicians utilize a wide range of treatment modalities including:
3-5-7 Model
Adoption, Permanency Curriculum for Child Welfare & Mental Health Professional (ACT)
Attachment, Regulation and Competency Framework (ARC)
Brainspotting (BSP)
Circle of Security – Parenting (COS-P)
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
Emotion Focused Family Therapy (EFFT)
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP)
Sensory Motor Arousal Regulation Treatment (SMART)
Somatic Experiencing (SE)
Structural Dissociation Model
Trauma-Informed Stabilization Treatment (TIST)