This is the AUDIO version of Therapeutic Insights for Working with Foster and Adoptive Parents.

This course is for you if:

• You’re a therapist supporting perinatal clients and realize foster and adoptive parents deserve more than a brief mention in your training—they need a seat at the table.  

• You’ve found yourself second-guessing how to talk about grief, loss, or termination of parental rights in a way that honors everyone involved.  

• You’re craving more than surface-level CEUs—you want depth, nuance, and real conversation about systems, identity, and what it actually means to do this work well.  

• You’ve ever thought, “How does adopting a child impact your mental health?”

• You love case vignettes, practical tools, and learning through story—and you’re curious about how different therapeutic approaches can be tailored to this population.  

• You’re open to reflecting on your own biases, expanding your clinical lens, and building a practice that holds space for ambiguity, complexity, and resilience.  

Course Description:

Foster and adoptive parents carry unique emotional and systemic burdens that are often misunderstood or overlooked in clinical practice. This course invites therapists to explore the nuanced mental health experiences of foster and adoptive families through a trauma-responsive, socioculturally-attuned lens. Clinicians will evaluate their own implicit and explicit biases, explore systemic barriers that impact care, and learn evidence-based treatment approaches that strengthen outcomes in the therapy room.

This training challenges dominant narratives around foster care and adoption, emphasizing the need to hold space for loss, ambiguity, identity development, and the ongoing impact of early trauma. Participants will be equipped to reframe perinatal mental health to include fostering and adoption, work ethically and compassionately with clients navigating complex parenting roles, and support families across a spectrum of grief, transition, and resilience.

Learning Objectives:

• Evaluate potential barriers within the self-of-the-therapist by assessing implicit and explicit biases of foster care, termination of parental rights, and adoption

• Identify unique challenges faced foster and adoptive parents with a trauma-informed, socioculturally-attuned lens

• Explore practical treatment approaches and case studies when working with foster and adoptive parents