Preparing Adoptive Families (2 credit hours)

Program Summary:  This course explores the importance of preparing and supporting parents, children, and youth for adoption.  It offers guidance and strategies for those who work with adoptive families and includes information on trauma, attachment, self care, financial considerations, and preplacement visits.  The course also explores the impact of adoption and 7 core issues including loss, rejection, shame, grief, identity, intimacy, and mastery and control.

This course is recommended for social workers, counselors, and therapists and it is appropriate for beginning and intermediate levels of practice.  

“Book  Open the Course Reading Here.

Course Readings:  

1.  Preparing Adoptive Parents

2.  Preparing Children and Youth for Adoption or Other Family Permanency

3.  The Impact of Adoption

Publisher:  The Children’s Bureau

Course Objectives: To enhance professional practice, values, skills, and knowledge by exploring key strategies to support and prepare families for adoption.

Learning Objectives:  Compare children’s and parent’s perspectives on the adoption process.  Identify strategies to prepare children for permanency.  Identify benefits of postadoption contact with birth families.  Describe one of the 7 core issues related to the impact of adoption.

Review our pre-reading study guide.

Course Available Until: January 31, 2025.

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1: When providing information to prospective adoptive parents about their children, it is critical for caseworkers
 
 
2: By only providing the 'positive' information about a child
 
 
3: Which of the following best describes children's emotions during adoption?
 
 
 
 
4: It is important for parents to _________ the emotions the child is experiencing.
 
 
5: Experiencing the trauma of child maltreatment can change or impair children's brain development, which can affect ____________ into adulthood.
 
 
 
 
6: New adoptive parents often need to focus on _____________ first.
 
 
7: One way to help build attachment is to
 
 
8: Postplacement contact with birth families, as well as other prior caregivers, when safe, can help
 
 
 
 
9: Children adopted from foster care may be eligible for Federal _______________ reimbursements for recurring monthly payments for a child's care and/or nonrecurring expenses.
 
 
 
 
10: If possible, preplacement visits should begin with
 
 
 
 
11: Facilitating healthy attachments and interactions among ___________ is an essential goal.
 
 
 
 
12: It is important to help parents set _______________ expectations for the adoption and their child and ensure that families have a comprehensive set of supports both before and after the adoption is finalized.
 
 
 
 
13: For the following questions, please refer to reading #2: Achieving permanency is
 
 
 
 
14: How a child views the permanency process will likely be ____________ how a professional views it.
 
 
15: In addition to the loss of their parents upon removal from the home, children may also experience the loss of
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
16: Which of the following may result in additional unresolved grief?
 
 
17: Permanency work with children requires time, consistency, honesty, and authenticity from social workers.
 
 
18: It is often in the child's best interests to _____________ postadoption contact with his or her birth family.
 
 
19: It is necessary for children to hear and feel from people who are important to them that it is okay to love another family.
 
 
20: Helping children remember and maintain connections from their past as well as integrate their previous experiences into their current lives best describes the
 
 
 
21: Helping children and their birth parents meet and process the upcoming adoption best describes the
 
 
 
22: Helping children explore and understand permanency in relationships using tasks, questions, and elements
 
 
 
23: The Impact of Adoption: Adoption-related __________ is described as a feeling of distress and confusion about people who are physically absent but psychologically present in your life.
 
 
 
 
24: If you're an adoptive parent, you may wonder if you were meant to be a parent and may watch for signs of ____________ from your child.
 
 
 
 
25: The pain that stems from loss and the recognition of the family or life that was lost through adoption describes
 
 
 
 
26: Having access to genetic and health information is critically important in terms of wellness and _________________.
 
 
 
 
27: Adoption requires ____________ to give up some sense of control.
 
 
 
 

In order to purchase or take this course, you will need to log in. If you do not have an account, you will need to register for a free account.

After you log in, a link will appear here that will allow you to purchase this course.

G.M. Rydberg-Cox, MSW, LSCSW is the Continuing Education Director at Free State Social Work and responsible for the development of this course.  She received her Masters of Social Work in 1996 from the Jane Addams School of Social Work at the University of Illinois-Chicago and she has over 20 years of experience.  She has lived and worked as a social worker in Chicago, Boston, and Kansas City. She has practiced for many years in the area of hospital/medical social work.  The reading materials for this course were developed by another organization.

Course Available Until: January 31, 2025.
Filed under: Children, Clinical, Families