Presenter: Joyce Maguire Pavao, Ed.D, LCSW, LMFT
The Children’s Behavioral Health Knowledge Center at the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health is sponsoring a FREE half-day workshop for Massachusetts behavioral health providers on pre/post adoption issues for birth/first parents and for adoptive parents and children. This workshop introduces the concept of birth/first family issues at the time of placement or removal and issues that impact, and effect, the extended birth family, the child and the adoptive family. Participants will also learn about the issues of grief, loss, and depression as a result of placing a child or having a child removed, and of adoption choices for adoptive parents. Additionally issues of grief, loss, depression as a result of infertility or choice to adopt, will be reviewed including how these issues might impact parenting a child by adoption.
At the conclusion of this activity participants will be able to:
1) Describe how issues of grief, loss, and depression can impact the extended birth family, the child, and the adoptive family.
2) Explain how genograms can be used to understand the relationships among family members.
3) Discuss how families deal with infertility or alternative choices to giving birth to one’s child.
Requests for accommodations should be sent to kelly.english@state.ma.us at least two weeks prior to the event.
