Join us for a day-long program designed specifically for adoptees, led by adoption-competent therapists.
This year’s theme, Activate Your Inner Compass: Finding Your Quiet Power, invites kids and teens to explore what it means to be a hero in their own lives. Together, we’ll discover how to identify inner strength, follow our “true north,” and build confidence in handling life’s big emotions.
Through fun, creative, and practical activities, participants will learn and practice coping strategies they can turn to during tough times. These hands-on experiences will also serve as a foundation for meaningful conversation about their unique perspectives as adoptees, all while building community and connection with peers who understand.
Presented by Allison Davis Maxon, LMFT
Parents help shape the most complex organ in the universe – the human mind!
Becoming a parent creates one of the greatest identity transformations we will ever experience. When we go from being ‘non-parents’ to suddenly parenting a baby, child, teen or siblings a seismic shift occurs in our heart, body and mind. This new role brings significant emotional, physical and psychological demands, as well as challenges we never saw coming. It changes how we see ourselves, our relationships and our world.
It’s easy for parents to absorb the losses, trauma, hurt and anger that are triggered within the emotional intimacy of the parent-child attachment relationship. Toxic stress embeds itself into our heart, body and mind, making it difficult to emotionally attune to the needs of our child. Parents are the most valuable therapeutic modality available to a traumatized child.
Empowering parents to prioritize their own emotional, physical and mental health is the best gift we can give to a hurt child. Join us for a day of laughter, connection and learning as we focus on the needs of parents who are living the trauma trenches.
Allison Davis Maxon, M.S., LMFT is a nationally recognized expert in the fields of child welfare and children’s mental health specializing in Attachment, Developmental Trauma and Permanency/Adoption. She is the Executive Director of the National Center on Adoption and Permanency and was the foster care consultant for the Paramount Pictures movie Instant Family. Allison was honored in 2017 with the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute ‘Angels in Adoption’ award and is the co-author of Seven Core Issues in Adoption and Permanency: A Guide to Promoting Understanding and Healing in Adoption, Foster Care, Kinship Families and Third Party Reproduction, Jessica Kingsley Publishers (2019) and The Seven Core Issues Workbook for Parents of Traumatized Children and Teens: A Guide to Help You Explore Feelings and Overcome Emotional Challenges in Your Family, Jessica Kingsley Publishers (2022). Her newest book is The Seven Core Issues for in Adoption and Permanency Workbook for Children and Teens: A Trauma-Informed Resource, Jessica Kingsley Publishers (2023).
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Due to traumatic life experiences and compromised beginnings, many children who are adopted, who are being raised by relatives (kinship care), or have experienced foster care have higher risks for developmental, health, emotional, behavioral, and academic challenges.
Individuals and participating family members received Adoption Competent Therapy in 2024.
Parents and professionals registered for the Strengthening Your Family (SYF) Webinar Series in 2024.
Children and families have received adoption-competent mental health services since 1998.
