Child Welfare League of America

Workshop Session F

F-1 Connecting Services and Outcomes: Using Logic Models in Postadoption Services Evaluation

Logic models are road maps that show how your program works. They focus on identifying links between the services your agency offers and the outcomes you hope to achieve, charting progress from initial and shortterm outcomes toward intermediate and long-term outcomes. Logic models can clarify your program and services in terms of how they are to work and what may be needed to fine-tune them, and they are an excellent tool for strategic planning as they can help you identify areas in which additional services are needed to achieve intended outcomes. Child Welfare Information Gateway staff introduce an online Logic Model Builder that programs can use to create unique logic models to support effective evaluations of their postadoption services programs.
Presenters: Phyllis Charles, Adoption Program Manger, Child Welfare Information Gateway, Fairfax, VA; and Matthew McGuire, Associate, ICF International, Fairfax, VA

F-2 Medical Aspects of Adoption and Foster Care (Domestic and International)

The effect of institutionalization on the physical and psychological health of children is well established. How do children in foster care compare? What are the salient medical and psychological issues? What does the pediatrician seeing your client need to know and need to do? This workshop answers these questions, as well as explores the similarities and differences among domestic adoption, foster care, and international adoption.
Presenters: Todd J. Ochs MD, Ravenswood Medical Group, Chicago, IL; Moira Szylagi MD, Starlight Pediatrics, Monroe County Health Department, Rochester, NY; and Deborah Ann Borchers MD, Fort Mitchell, KY

F-3 Collaboration with Tribal Communities: Culturally-Based Recruitment

Many non-Indians in public-private child welfare work with ICWA and tribes. The sovereign nation status of tribes, and their historical experiences, make the involvement of outsiders particularly problematic. This workshop, specifically for non-Indian workers and administrators, shares steps and skills for developing authentic and collaborative tribal relationships.
Presenters: Susan Quash-Mah, Project Director, Recruiting Rural Parents for Indian Children, Eugene, OR; and Deb Johnson-Shelton, Associate Scientist, Oregon Research Institute, Eugene, OR

F-4 Struggle for Identity: A Conversation 10 Years Later

Featuring an all-new 20-minute follow-up to the acclaimed film, "Struggle for Identity: Issues in Transracial Adoption," this workshop presents the voices, experiences, and insights of cast members 10 years later. They explore ongoing issues of racism, the public nature of transracial adoption, loyalty and attachment, the concept of "transracialization," and creating multicultural families. Their lifelong journeys inform a discussion of race, racism, and the tools needed for successful transracial/transcultural adoption.
Presenter: Judith Ashton, Executive Director, NYS Citizens' Coalition for Children Inc., Ithaca, NY

F-5 Successful Adoption of the Adolescent

At a time when the population of waiting children is aging into adolescence in ever-greater numbers, and there are still tremendous biases against teens all through society, an adoption agency that has successfully and permanently placed hundreds of adolescents into their forever families offers a belief system and practical techniques that work.
Presenter: Maris H. Blechner, Executive Director, Family Focus Adoption Services, Little Neck, NY

F-6 Bridging the Gap to Adulthood

During this presentation presenters provide an overview of a lifeskills curriculum, which offers youth hands-on learning experiences helping prepare them for adulthood. Participants learn to adapt the life-skill activities to work with older youth in helping them achieve permanency. This presentation goes beyond skill development by looking at options to identify and connect youth with lifelong permanent connections through past and present contacts, as well as life-skill activities.
Presenters: Clay Finck, Program Supervisor, National Resource Center for Youth Services, Tulsa, OK; and John Tortorea, Training Coordinator, Every Child Inc., Pittsburgh, PA

F-7 Advocacy-Centered Recruitment to Expedite the Placement of Children in Adoptive Homes

This workshop introduces parents, child advocates, frontline staff, and supervisors of adoption and foster care programs to two initiatives to help expedite diligent searches and the placement of children and youth in adoptive homes. The key focus is reducing the time children wait for permanency.
Presenters: Antoinette Nelson, Director, Adoption Support Services, and Delphinne (Vanessa) Gamble, Adoption Recruitment Agency Liaison and Supervisor, NYC Administration for Children's Services, New York, NY; and Natalie Washine, Division Manager, Legal Services, and Marybeth Powers, Legal Services Initiative Coordinator, Family Design Resources, Harrisburg, PA

F-8 Reshaping our Beliefs and Values in Working with Birthmothers After The Girls Who Went Away

The book by Ann Fessler, The Girls Who Went Away, has had a huge impact in shaping the overall view of adoption. This workshop addresses the birthmother's legacy in adoption practice today. Reading these stories will dramatically change the way we prepare today's birthmothers and the follow-up services we offer them. A video interview with Ms. Fessler, and the voices of birthmothers, will be included in this presentation, which will end with a panel discussion.
Presenter: Leslie Pate MacKinnon, Clinical Social Worker, Atlanta, GA Panelists: Linda Woods, LAAB, Kenner, LA, Linda Pendergast, LAAB, Baton Rouge, LA, and Danna Cousins, New Orleans, LA

F-9 Creative Strategies for Building and Funding Adoption-Competent Mental Health Services

This workshop provides an array of promising approaches to planning, funding, developing, and implementing adoption-competent mental health services identified through a national search conducted by Casey Family Services. Adoptive parents and youth; diverse practitioners; state adoption, mental health, and Medicaid managers; and advocates were involved in identifying the current mix of federal funding streams and innovative and adoption-competent support, education, and mental health programs that can be implemented at the state and local levels. Lessons learned from one innovative adoption-focused mental health agency are highlighted for policy and practice.
Presenters: Sarah B. Greenblatt, Director, Casey Center for Effective Child Welfare Practice, New Haven, CT; and Debbie Riley, Executive Director, Center for Adoption Support and Education, Burtonsville, MD

F-10 Open Records and Open Adoption: Standards for Best Practice

This interactive workshop is designed to engage professionals to advocate for fully disclosed adoptions and for allowing adoptees access to their original birth certificates. Using research and life experience, as well as the benchmark of Best Practices, the presenter will show lifelong, generational benefits of connecting adopted people with their birthfamilies.
Presenter: Mary Martin Mason, Legislative Committee Chair, American Adoption Congress, and Adoption Information Coordinator, Minnesota Adoption Resource Network (MARN), Edina, MN

F-11 Let's Get It Right: Multisystem/Multilevel Assessments in the Home-Study and Post Placement Services

Assessment procedures are presented and demonstrated that have been used primarily for assessment in clinical and research settings, but show potential for adoptive/foster care home selection and training as well. Attention is paid to specific assessment techniques and procedures and to developing skills highly familiar to the worker that are not only behavioral in origin, but can be used as explicit indicators of levels of family functioning.
Presenter: Wayne D. Duehn, Professor of Social Work, School of Social Work, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX

F-12 Recruiting Adoptive Families Using Proven Marketing Strategies

Do you have enough approved families for your waiting children? Are you recruiting families the same way as always (fairs, billboards, posters) but expecting different results? Two established adoption agencies share their proven successes in recruiting adoptive families through a variety of targeted marketing and child-specific recruitment strategies.
Presenters: Cindy Knul, Director of Recruitment, Children's Home Society of North Carolina; and Cheryl Tarantino, Director of Marketing and Recruitment, Northeast Ohio Adoption Services,Warren, OH

F-13 Strength-Based Perspectives in Training and Practice for Adolescent Permanency

This workshop covers two perspectives: an overview of Supervisory Training Program to enhance supervisory practice to support staff in their work with adolescents, including promoting permanency and preparation for young adulthood, and a practice model based on intra-agency program collaboration with a strategy for matching and support that focuses primarily on the interests and abilities of adolescents and families.
Presenters: Gretchen Hall, Project Director, and Martha Henry, Acting Director, Center for Adoption Research, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Shrewsbury, MA; and Tom Borden, Codirector of the Permanency Division, Susan Woglon, Codirector of the Permanency Division, and Deb Estelle, Adoption Journeys Regional Coordinator, Berkshire Children and Families, Northampton, MA


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