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Media Advisory: For Immediate Release
Legal claim forces Cambridge, MA PACT to establish
new identity as AACT
March 4, 2015 - Cambridge, MA
Dr. Joyce Maguire Pavao of Cambridge, MA founded Pre/Post Adoption Consulting and Training (PACT) in 1982 to provide much-needed services to children and families preparing for or living in adoption, expanding the consulting and training practice through decades of service to families formed not only through adoption, but also through foster care, kinship care, guardianship, and alternative reproductive technologies.
After 33 years of operation as PACT, henceforward, Pre/Post Adoption Consulting and Training will be known as All Adoption Consulting and Training (AACT) pursuant to a Cease and Desist Letter issued by legal counsel for Beth Hall of Pact: An Adoption Alliance, established in 1991 in Emeryville, CA.
There have always been other child welfare and related organizations in disparate geographic regions, such as Parents And Children Together (PACT) in the UK and later Ms. Hall's Pact: An Adoption Alliance in California, using variations on the name "PACT," but Ms. Hall has legally registered the name for her organization, forcing a difficult change. The financial losses imposed through the necessary changes in design, logo, stationery materials, etc. are not insignificant, but more sharply felt are the emotional and psychological losses associated with this enforced change in identity after more than three decades - losses not unfamiliar to anyone in the world of adoption.
AACT (All Adoption Consulting and Training) will stand alone and beside the distinct program called AACT (After Adoption Consulting and Training) @Riverside (which expressly serves the Department of Mental Health of MA).These changes are being enacted immediately, trusting that Ms. Hall's legal counsel will permit the reasonable transition grace period required to alter existing materials, planned events, pre-placed advertisements, long-standing web presence, and current grants.
For inquiries regarding these changes, please contact: [email protected]
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We can't wait to come back stronger than ever and to continue to provide our expert services nationally and internationally.
For this reason all logos and materials are changing. We very much appreciate your support through this transition.
That is all I will say about that for now. Meanwhile in Boston....
We are working hard here in the office and out and about.
I have been making some short videos and will soon begin inserting them into our newsletters.
I will be presenting at the AAC (American Adoption Congress) Conference in late March and at the Rudd Conference at UMass Amherst in April. Both look like great conferences.
We are shaping up our ARC Conference for June 21-23 in Provincetown, MA and will make the brochure available soon. It is going to be a bit different from past years. We want to open dialog for differences of opinion around key issues in adoption. It is important to listen and learn, and we hope to help that happen. This is the best location for a conference and we hope you can come!
We have been working with a few divorced families around resurfacing adoption issues for kids who feel that they keep losing parents. There has not been a lot done about this issue, but it is quite an important one.
I interviewed Leslie Pate Mackinnon for Gazillion Voices. It was a great interview as you would expect because she is great!
We have been very busy with DMH cases in Tewksbury, Westboro, New Bedford, and other areas. The cases involve families struggling with very complex mental health issues, and often a part of the solution is talking more about adoption and about the child's story.
I visited April Dinwoodie at her lovely office for the Donaldson Adoption Institute. April is doing a beautiful job of shifting the focus at DAI and moving the agenda toward what is current and deep.
We have been working with families that are opening closed adoptions and getting ready for the "reunion" with birth families. Many of these kids are in their early adolescence and are eager to know more about themselves as they continue to establish their identities.
Some old CFFC clients have been coming back in for 50 Thousand Mile Check-Ups. That is great.
We celebrated the Year of the Sheep (or Goat or Ram)!
Sincerely,
AACT (All Adoption Consulting and Training)
Dr. Joyce Maguire Pavao
Emily Adcox, Executive Assistant
Deirdre Jimenez, Intern
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