Dear Everyone:

I was aiming for a January Newsletter and before I knew it, it was February!  We are deluged with snow here in Cambridge and have missed many working days. 

This has not prevented us from working at home and getting lots of writings done.  However, it has caused huge financial issues, as we have had three weeks of closings and cancelations due to the State of Emergency, parking bans, and suspended public transportation.  It has been a mess.  Our own parking lot has devolved from having six spaces to hardly having two, because there is nowhere to put the snow.  You all know this challenge if you live in Eastern MA and especially in Boston/Cambridge.  So we are working hard to get up to date on all reports, assessments, articles and other writing projects.

During this crazy month of that four letter word: snow....

The kinds of challenges that people are facing in January/February are as follows:

• Divorce and adoption: how children with existing fears and losses are further confounded when their adoptive parents divorce and remarry

• Identity confusion: when children are trying to figure out what it means to have come not only from another mother, but also from another country

• Adolescent angst: when kids end up with multiple hospitalizations and residential placements, because they fight within themselves in unsafe ways and cannot be contained safely at home.  Some of them wonder, "If I was told that my birthparents couldn't keep me safe and that is why I came to my adoptive parents, what does it mean when my adoptive parents can't keep me safe either?"

• Not knowing: implications when a child and his sister are both adopted, but neither has been told that they are adopted.  The brother is hospitalized and might think that only he was adopted - he thinks that the reason his sister is "the favorite" is because she was not adopted.  This is not true, but it is in his mind.

• Birthparents who need help understanding why, when we open a closed adoption, everyone isn't automatically ready for unstructured, casual, and frequent communication.  Relationships take time to grow; just because two people are related, that doesn't necessarily mean that they have a relationship.

• How to deal with an older foster child who doesn't adhere to the foster parents' rules and whose behavior impacts the younger adopted and foster children in that home

• How to negotiate connections when there is a language, cultural, and/or economic difference between people

• How to negotiate connections between adoptive parents and birthparents in order to build a foundational relationship in which to involve the child in the future

• How to understand a child who is so very different from you that it is often hard to be open, let alone kind (while the child feels the same way toward you)

• How to talk about adoption and birth family

• How to prepare for a trip to the homeland and/or to the birth family

• Adult adopted people coping with search, reunion, and guilt while working to balance home life, career, and relationships

These are some of the issues that we are working on with folks.

In addition, we are doing consultations for the Department of Mental Health and for Riverside Community Care.  We are also consulting to the Donaldson Adoption Institute in NYC and working on grant proposals.

We are busy planning for the annual ARC summer intensives - save the dates, June 21-23 in Provincetown!  Just the thought of it seems like a dream as we're buried in all this snow!

If you live anywhere, but especially in New England, you should catch the AAC Conference on March 25-29 at the Hyatt Regency in Cambridge.  The conference promises a great few days with excellent exposure to current thinking on adoption.  It is geared toward those who live and work in the world of adoption, but all are welcome.

Sincerely,  

PACT (Pre/Post Adoption Consulting and Training)

Dr. Joyce Maguire Pavao

Emily Adcox, Executive Assistant

Deirdre Jimenez, Intern

An Opportunity to Intern with PACT and AACT

June 2015 - June 2016

Clinical Intern:

The Clinical Intern will be responsible for providing clinical services to clients and associates of PACT and AACT. Responsibilities also include providing planning for, coordinating, and participating in training/events.  The Intern will report to the CEO.

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