Adoption and Post-Adoption

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  Parenting Your Adopted Preschooler

  Child Welfare Information Gateway

  This factsheet is designed to help parents understand the impact of adoption on their preschooler's development and provide practical strategies to build a warm and loving relationship with their child based on honesty and trust. This factsheet can serve as a reference during a child's preschool years.

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  Parenting Your Adopted School-Aged Child

  Child Welfare Information Gateway

  This factsheet is designed to help adoptive parents understand and respond to their school-age child's developmental needs. It provides simple, practical strategies you can use to foster healthy development, including approaches for building attachment; addressing trauma, grief, and loss; talking honestly with your child about adoption; acknowledging his or her adoption history; using effective discipline; and enhancing your child's school experience. Because some adoptive families will need extra support to address their children's mental or behavioral health needs, the factsheet also discusses when and how to seek help.

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  Parenting Your Adopted Teenager

  Child Welfare Information Gateway

  This factsheet is designed to help adoptive parents understand the needs and experiences of their teen and use practical strategies to foster healthy development. These strategies include approaches that acknowledge potential trauma and loss, support effective communication, promote independence, and address possible behavioral and mental health concerns.

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  Preparing Children and Youth for Adoption or Other Family Permanency

  Child Welfare Information Gateway

  Children, including youth, leaving out-of-home care for adoption or other family permanency require preparation and support to help them understand past events in their lives and process feelings connected to their experiences of abuse and neglect, separation, and loss. This bulletin will help child welfare professionals better understand the feelings and emotions children may experience regarding permanency and prepare them for placements with permanent families. Its focus is on adoption, but much of the information is also applicable to children with other permanency goals, such as kinship care or guardianship.

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  Helping Your Adopted Children Maintain Important Relationships with Family

  Child Welfare Information Gateway

  Children and youth who have been adopted and maintain relationships with their birth families, caregivers, and other important people in their lives benefit in significant ways. Adoptive parents can play an instrumental role in helping their children maintain contact with their birth families or other important caregivers. This factsheet is intended to help adoptive parents support children, youth, and birth families in strengthening their relationships.

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  Sibling Issues in Foster Care and Adoption

  Child Welfare Information Gateway

  Sibling relationships can provide positive support and improved outcomes for children involved with child welfare as well as for those in the general population. Connections with siblings can serve as a protective factor for children who have been removed from their birth homes, but for a variety of reasons, siblings may not be placed together or may not have regular contact. This bulletin explores relevant research, strategies, and resources to assist child welfare professionals in preserving connections among siblings.

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  Helping Your Child Transition from Foster Care to Adoption

  Child Welfare Information Gateway

  This factsheet for families offers tips for helping a child transition from foster care to adoption. Children and youth may not clearly understand the difference between being in out-of-home care and being adopted within the same family. This factsheet provides parents with steps they can take to promote attachment and ease the adjustment process at specific developmental stages along with helpful resources to encourage permanency.