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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 - 5 of 24 Voices of Lived Experience Stories
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Hear a foster and adoptive father of African American boys talk about fighting cultural biases to support his sons’ well-being.

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This video is a part of the Empowering Caregivers, Strengthening Families Video Series.

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Exhibits the effect of committed caregivers throughout the process of foster parenting to adoption and demonstrates the power of strong families in promoting positive outcomes and permanency for children.

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This video raises key motivating factors for caregivers, including the need for strong family and community support networks.

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Highlights some of the factors that motivate caregivers to work through challenges and to provide permanency to children in foster care. In this video, a foster parent discusses lessons learned from fostering over 50 children in her home.