As you all know, better than anyone, holidays are family times and in some instances that is fun and great and a time to connect and celebrate, and for some it is filled with difficulty and pain and loss.   Remember that for children, who have lost and lost and lost family after family, and placement after placement, the holidays may be extremely stressful, and it may be a time of triggers and behavioral escapades that don't seem at all right. 

 

Try to keep in mind not what you are currently doing to make their lives wonderful, but the past that creeps up and resides in their minds as they wander through some painful memories.

 

We are busy here at PACT (and Riverside AACT)!

 

• We have been helping families to sort out custody arrangements that are less about the needs of the adults, and more about the needs of the children. 
• We are dealing with increasing numbers of issues with families with donor children.  These parents are eager to say the right things and to be supportive if their adult and sometimes adolescent children are in the process of searching for siblings and other birth relatives.  The old issues of adoption are now part of the new issues of Reproductive Technologies.
• We are helping families and schools to understand some of the hot points for children in adoption with certain assignments and with friends who don't 'get' adoption.
• We are helping teens who are depressed and confused about identity issues and who can't see beyond to what will become of them.
• We are helping families with international adoptions to understand the fact that kids are resilient and learn language quickly, but do not comprehend and sometimes mistake what people are saying and doing.
• We are assessing families and children and helping them to find adoption competent therapists closer to home.
• We are doing a number of conference calls and Google visits with families and adult adopted people across the country as well as in the UK, Italy and China.
• We are helping couples (and individuals) to negotiate decisions around how to form their families

We are hoping to get the Boston and NYC training programs off the ground in January, but we still need more attendees to make it cost effective.

 

We are doing supervision for LMFT, MSW, LMHC and other therapists.

 

We are doing coaching for professionals and for parents.

 

 

 

These are just some of the things that come up in our day-to-day work at PACT and PCC.

 

At Riverside AACT, we are working closely with Riverside to train and consult on adoption cases to various teams in Cambridge, Somerville, Needham and Dedham.  We are working with DMH in Westboro and in Boston and Newton and are doing monthly consultations on some of their cases.  Materials are being developed to help practitioners to help families in adoption. We are also doing monthly consultations with DCF Lawrence on adoption-related cases.

 

 

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The Final Page of the latest issue of Irish America magazine features an article about the work that Dr. Valerie O'Brien and I are undertaking:

 

 The Last Word: Irish-American Adoptions

 

By Dr. Valerie O'Brien and Dr. Joyce Maguire Pavao December / January 2014

 

 

 

Is it time to have a gathering? Philomena shines a light on an aspect of Irish in need of urgent attention.

 

The movie Philomena, based on Philomena Lee's real-life search for her son who was adopted by an American family, highlights the issue of the many clandestine adoptions of Irish children by U.S. families, and the complicity of religious orders and government and church hierarchy in those unethical and often illegal adoptions.

 

The stories of these children have been both 'known' and 'unknown' in Ireland, where for generations communities turned a blind eye to the goings-on.

 

Previous to Philomena (based on the 2009 investigative book by BBC correspondent Martin Sixsmith), Mike Milotte's 1997 book Banished Babies caused an uproar with his claim that at least 2,400 Irish children were adopted by U.S. families in the period from early 1940's to early 1970's. Many of those children are now in their 50s and 60s, and time is running out for their birth mothers who are now elderly. (Philomena Lee just turned 80.)

 

We know that many of the adopted people have been searching for their Irish families and likewise, mothers have been searching for their children. We know too, as in Philomena's case, that often times their entreaties for information have been met with silence...

 

 

 

 

 

 

I recommend this book for yourself or a gift for a loved one this holiday season:

  

 

 

  

 

Print version available on Amazon for $13, e-version for $5.99. Both rated among top ten best sellers on adoption within a week!

  

 

Also, you can preview Alison Larkin's "The DNA Song" on  Soundcloud, and then download the audiobook for free on Audible.com:

 

 

The DNA Song grew out of the huge response Larkin had to her bestselling novel The English American (Simon and Schuster 2008) from adoptees and people born through anonymous sperm and egg donation who long to know the truth about their origins.

 

  

****  

  

 

2014 Adoption Training Courses...

 

We are hoping to get our 2014 courses up and running.  Please send the following links to professionals and parents in Boston and NYC.

  

 

Advanced Consultation/Supervision Course in 

Adoption and Complex Blended Families

  

 

Consultation, Supervision and Training for mental health professionals, in specialized theories and practices for working with all members of the adoptive triad, including birth mothers and fathers; adoptive mothers and fathers; and the adopted persons. The continuum of care from foster care (or orphanage) to kinship, guardianship or adoption is an important foundation of understanding necessary to be competent in working with families and children in the world of adoption. All of these family constructions will be discussed and included in the program. 

 

 

 

 

BOSTON 

 

 

January 10, February 28, March 21, April 25

Fridays from 9:00 to 2:00 

Consultation/Supervision course from 2:30-5

January 19, 2013

February 8, March 8, and April 5, 2014

Saturdays from 9:00 to 2:00 

Consultation/Supervision course from 2:30 to 5

 **** 

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Sincerely,

 

Dr. Joyce Maguire Pavao

 

 

PACT

Pre/Post Adoption Consulting and Training

Dr. Joyce Maguire Pavao

220 Concord Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138  617 547 0909  [email protected]