Step outside the office and enjoy your lunch with other adoptive parents!

Do you worry that you have the only child in the world who glues the dog’s tail to the floor and dials 911 on your phone when you take a 2-minute pee by yourself? Does your teenager act like you have bubonic plague if you slightly brush against them in the kitchen? You are not alone on your journey as an adoptive parent!!

Hop on Zoom for an hour and connect with other Maryland parents who really get it. There are no power point slides or lecturing in this group – it’s a totally open hour for parents to share and connect. The group facilitator, an experienced family therapist, creates a safe and open space for caregivers to feel truly heard and seen. We encourage folks in this group to make connections with others in their area offline and in person. How great would it be to find someone with a family like yours to have a coffee or play date with? Come all weeks or drop in when you can.

This 6 session virtual support group will be held on the following Thursdays (drop-in):
Jun. 15th, Jun. 22nd, Jun. 29th, Jul. 6th, Jul. 13th, Jul. 20th

Facilitator

Heather Sowers, LCSW-C, Board Certified Telehealth Professional Level I serves clients throughout Maryland via telehealth. Heather Sowers, LCSW-C has spent the last 30+ years dedicated to improving the lives of children, youth and families. She began her professional journey in a residential treatment center working with pre-teens who were wards of the state in the early 1990s. She witnessed firsthand how painful it is for children to be separated from their families and how inhumane policies of the facility itself further traumatized children and staff. This experience sparked in her a desire to better understand adverse childhood experiences and how to best help families impacted by them. From the Florida swamps to the Montana wilderness, Heather has worked with diverse clients in non-traditional and experiential settings such as gardens, farms, camps and outdoor schools. Because of her extensive training in Adventure Based Counseling, she brings a high level of innovation and creativity into the therapy setting and conveys a sense of positive presence that is tangible – even over Zoom! She’s learned from extensive in-home work that families engage more easily with therapists who dare to be goofy and think outside-of-the-box. Heather especially loves facilitating dynamic, interactive group experiences for kids and teens who may feel less than thrilled about therapy. Heather is thankful for the training she received in Ecosystemic Structural Family Therapy while working as a therapist for the state funded Family Based Mental Health Services program in Pennsylvania, providing intensive in-home family therapy aimed at preventing out of home placements. Most recently, Heather served as a school-based therapist in rural northern Harford County, MD where over 30% of her caseload was comprised of informal kinship care families – children living with grandparents or other relatives. Heather holds a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism from the University of Montana at Missoula and a Master’s degree in Social Work from West Chester University of Pennsylvania.

Contact: Tamara Burke, Burke@adoptionsupport.org