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Capacity Building

CENTER FOR STATES

Listen to the stories of foster parents and kinship caregivers who adopted children when reunification wasn’t possible. Hear from youth and young adults whose adoptions were successful and from others who returned to foster care. These stories reveal how caregivers, youth, and young adults made decisions, coped with the trauma intrinsic to childhood abuse or neglect, navigated the uncertainties of foster care, and negotiated boundaries, communication, support, and normalcy as families.

Find adoption stories that best meet your needs by selecting filters on the left and use them with activities from the discussion guide to build understanding and foster connections as you advocate, inspire, support, recruit, train, and coach individuals and teams.

Showing 1 - 1 of 1 Voices of Lived Experience Stories
Video

Underscores the importance of community connections and ongoing supports to child and family well-being. In this set of digital stories, a grandmother, Joan, promotes the idea of “surround-sound parenting” for her adopted grandson, Chad.