New Jersey Adoption Resource Clearing House

Learn more about the adoption process in general and working with A Loving Choice Adoption Associates in particular at one of our complimentary information meetings. There is no fee to attend, but registration is required. Call or go on the website to register.

Promoting parent and family engagement

NHSA’s 37th annual Parent and Family Engagement Conference is the only national event that focuses on how Head Start parents, families, and staff can best partner to promote both family engagement and children’s development.

The 2019 Parent and Family Engagement conference will explore a wide range of new resources and thinking on the forefront topics of young children and how Head Start programs can address the needs of children, families, and staff.

A variety of sessions and presenters will enable conference attendees to indulge in discussions designed for parents, staff and leadership. Learn about developmentally appropriate innovations that are a practitioner- and family-friendly. Experts will share techniques and skills you can take home to create safe environments in which children can learn and flourish.

When we choose to become a transracial family through adoption, we accept the responsibility of opening our hearts and our lives to new ways of being.  Join us as we talk about what it means to be a “conspicuous family”, how to talk about race and culture with your children, learn ways to incorporate a wide array of multiculturalism into your family and discuss strategies for helping to educate others in your life about what it means to be a transracial family. This workshop is designed for all families who have or are planning to adopt a child of a race or ethnicity other than their own.

Registration is required for all events. This workshop is required for all families working with Open Arms hoping to adopt transracially.

Join Spence-Chapin social workers for a fun workshop that allows children age 6 and older to be the author of their life story. Making a Lifebook or updating an existing one provides an invaluable tool for processing their unique adoption story and sharing it with others. Through words and pictures your child will explore who they are and where they come from.

Join Spence-Chapin social workers for an exciting 2-hour workshop where adopted youth create masks to explore multiple facets of their identity. During this workshop, we will discuss our inner and outer selves, including how adoption influences both. Mask-making is a valuable tool to spark meaningful conversation between families while being creative together.

Spence-Chapin will provide supplies, but families are welcome to bring any art supplies or special mementos that they’d like to incorporate into their masks.

Recommended for adopted youth (ages 10 and older) and their parent(s).

Fee: $50/ family

Nationwide, the adoption discussion is too often missing the perspective of first/birth parent voices and instead dominated by the voices of adoptive parents. This bias masks the fact that every adoptee has two sets of parents, birth and adoptive.  When first/birth voices are missing, the message is sent to adoptees that their origin, the beginning of their life story and the connection to their first heritage and family is not important, not worthy, or perhaps is even something to be ashamed of, or overcome.

Designed for pre-adoptive and adoptive parents, this workshop will help you examine your fears, feelings, and preconceptions. Hear from several birth/first parents about how they are processing and managing their own adoption experiences. You will hear about different adoption scenarios including open adoptions with ongoing contact and adoptions where contact is challenging. We will offer insight into creative ways to maintain connection with first/birth parents who have engaged in unsafe behaviors. This webinar is appropriate for all members of the adoption triad and adoption professionals.

$36 per person non-member

Special pricing Pact member receive 25% discount.

The SSWR Annual Conference offers a scientific program that reflects a broad range of research interests, from workshops on the latest quantitative and qualitative research methodologies to symposia featuring studies in child welfare, aging, mental health, welfare reform, substance abuse, and HIV/AIDS. Over 500 symposia, workshop, roundtable, paper and poster presentations. Research methods workshops designed to enhance methods expertise and grant-writing skills and special sessions on research priorities and capacity building that target cutting-edge topics vital to contemporary social work research. Pre-conference programs and a networking reception especially for doctoral students.

Creating Change 2020!

Creating Change is a space that allows for expressing political differences, but we ask that this be done with respect for each other. This may be difficult at times, but our challenge is to stay open and not shut down or silence others. We choose to honor everyone’s dignity and humanity celebrating their right to be who they are – to be whole. We challenge ourselves to recognize and disrupt power dynamics that have perpetually harmed people, particularly Black and brown people, for generations. All of us are invited to challenge our assumptions about each other and our complex identities.

In this workshop we will anticipate your child’s questions about being adopted, what children need to now at different ages and stages about their origins and their stories. We’ll explore how children feel about adoption, what’s on their minds and in their hearts. Our conversation will include building a healthy identity based on honoring your child’s dual heritage (birth and adoptive) and the unique emotional landscape of loss that is a normal part of adoption experience and integral to the search for self.

Registration is required for all events. 

The San Diego International Conference on Child and Family Maltreatment is directed to a multidisciplinary audience in the fields of child maltreatment and family/community violence. The purpose of the Conference is to develop and enhance our professional skills in prevention, recognition, and treatment of all forms of maltreatment.

This workshop provides lived experience from educated, experienced adoptive parents that will include tips that we wished our younger selves had known and understood earlier. You will receive practical guidance on how to create a plan for parenting that includes managing the unknowns. We will cover topics including: handling your own fears, understanding how children understand & experience adoption, why the words we use matter, why beginning with a child’s birth makes sense, how to talk about first/birth parents, responding to difficult behaviors in children (and ourselves), answering and anticipating children’s questions, whether they ask them or not and reworking parenting expectations such that children don’t receive the message that we are disappointed in who they turn out to be. Experiences include same race adoption and transracial adoption, kinship adoption, foster adoption, infant adoption, closed adoption and open adoption. Expect honest conversation about the challenges and the joys and remember hindsight is often 20-20. This webinar is appropriate for pre-adoptive and adoptive parents as well as professionals working with these families.

$36 per person non-member

Special pricing Pact member receive 25% discount.

Transracial adoption for parents of color is becoming more common in the adoption community. In contrast to white adoptive parents, people of color understand first-hand what it means to be racially marginalized and have experienced racism first hand, but when parenting transracially they are not necessarily familiar with the specific microaggressions and oppressions that those of their child’s race and ethnicity experience. How can parents of color prepare to better understand the “–isms” their child will face and be ready with tools and steps to support their child? How can they educate themselves on the history and beauty of their child’s race and ethnicity? How do they handle the racial hierarchies and/or historical conflicts between people of their race/ethnic group(s) and that of their child’s racial/ethnic group? Learn how adoptive families of color, parenting across race, took steps to prepare themselves for transracial adoption and the continued work they do to support their child’s race and culture. This webinar is applicable to pre-adoptive and post-adoptive parents of color parenting across race and professionals working with this population.

$36 per person non-member

Special pricing Pact member receive 25% discount.

SHARING IDEAS THAT STRENGTHEN FAMILIES
AND ENGAGE COMMUNITIES TO PROMOTE CHILD WELL-BEING

All proposals are due no later than Friday, August 2, 2019.

We look forward to receiving proposals that share the best ideas and proven strategies from around the world that focus on strengthening families and engaging communities to promote child well-being. We want proposals that describe endeavors at program and systems levels, including how they are planned and developed. We also encourage sharing strategies for policy and organizational change as well as funding.  Outcomes are valued, especially the research and evaluation designs.

Hear from adopted adults about their adoption journey including the role their first/birth parents/families have had in their lives and understanding of their own identity. Too often in the adoption field, the adoptee perspective is subordinated to that of the adoptive parent. Pact believes that adults with first-hand experience are the truest experts on that experience. The voices of Latinx adopted adults, born both domestically and internationally, will be featured. They will address issues including language, gendered narratives about Latinx cultures, the importance of ethnic-specific connections, culture-specific approaches to adoption and search (both transnational and domestic).

“Charting a Course for the Future of Adoption”

This year’s conference topic will focus on the lifespan of adoptees with special consideration given to adult adoptees and their many connections across generations. The 2020 conference be marked with the many exciting signs of progress both with our program and within the world of adoption studies. We are pleased to announce the creation of a new position for the conference planning committee. Dr. Hollee McGinnis, assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University in the school of social work will serve in the inaugural role of Program Chair. Hollee’s work is based on her interest in adoption, children’s mental health and well-being, child welfare and alternative care systems. Her research broadly examines the social and cultural determinants of children’s mental health and well-being, with a specific focus on improving outcomes across the lifespan for children with histories of early childhood adversity.

Hear from adopted adults about their adoption journey including the role their first/birth parents/families have had in their lives and understanding of their own identity. Too often in the child welfare field, the adoptee perspective is subordinated to that of the adoptive parent. Pact believes that adults with first-hand experience are the truest experts on that experience. The voices of Asian adopted adults, born both domestically and internationally, will be featured. They will address issues such as being the ‘model’ minority, gendered narratives about female adoptees value in Asian cultures, exotified identities for Asian women and invisible masculinity for Asian men. Culture-specific approaches to adoption and search (both transnational and domestic) will also be addressed.

$36 per person non-member

Special pricing Pact member receive 25% discount.

The “Let’s Talk Adoption” conference is a dynamic and educational event coordinated entirely by CPFA volunteers in conjunction with the Rutgers School of Social Work and the New Jersey Interagency Adoption Council.  The goal is to educate and support those involved in the adoption constellation.  This non-profit conference has received accolades throughout its 35-year history by both parents and professionals.

CALL FOR WORKSHOP PROPOSALS

Proposals due on or before December 3, 2019

Racial identity for adopted and fostered people of color, especially when they are transracially adopted, is complex, as they navigate the multiple intersections of race in a racialized world. For those who either look racially ambiguous and/or embody multiple racial identities this complexity is further magnified. Drawing on racial identity development theories, this discussion will explore ambiguous, biracial and multiracial identity in the context of families, and include suggestions for parents and adults who are looking to support children in their exploration and journey of feeling comfortable in their own skin, and allow them to embrace one or all of their racial identities.

$36 per person non-member

Special pricing Pact member receive 25% discount.