Advocating for Your Child’s Educational Needs
During the first half of this two-hour training, we will watch and discuss the issues highlighted in a 20-minute video on adoption awareness in the schools. The second half will be devoted to Special Education law, including changes that went into effect on July 1, 2005 and resources families can access for help.
Trainer: John Bennett, ORPARC Resource Specialist

Attachment is the Key to Success: How to Start Children on the Right Path
Dr. Dave Ziegler, Ph.D., SCAR Jasper Mountain, will present a training on Attachment Issues in Children for Respite Care Providers, Adoptive, Foster and Guardianship parents. Dr. Ziegler’s successful work with troubled youth has informed the perspective that Attachment is the Key to either Social Success or Failure in Life. Come learn from his experiences on how to start children on the right path.

Behavior Management Approaches for Adoptive and Foster Families
Presented by Dr. Richard Delaney, Ph.D.
This workshop will provide a framework for understanding foster and adopted youngsters’ behavioral and emotional problems. It will also describe concrete behavioral management approaches to help these troubled children and youth. More specifically, this workshop will focus upon:

• Understanding the 5 predominant attachment styles in children and how knowing them helps us design helping interventions.
• The RDI—a short risk inventory for children. Identifying in advance those children who will need intensive post-placement services.
• The 7 major myths and 7 common motives of adoptive parents which can collide with issues from the foster or adopted child.
• Family-based strategies and management approaches for helping foster and adoptive parents and their child(ren).

Beneath the Mask: Adoption through the eyes of adolescents
Adoption influences and intensifies the normal tasks adolescents must accomplish (e.g. separation from parents, identity formation, decisions relating to sexuality, etc.). Struggling with this extra layer of challenges and reconciling their past and future identities can trigger mild and sometimes serious emotional/behavioral issues both at home and school – particularly adopted teens who are raised by parents of a different race or culture. Debbie Riley facilitates a compelling training session, weaving in some of the teen-written excerpts included in her book, Beneath the Mask: Understanding Adopted Teens.
Trainer: Debbie Riley, M.A., Executive Director, The Center for Adoption Support and Education, Inc. (C.A.S.E.)

Collaborative Problem Solving
This 4-hour training provides an overview of the Collaborative Problem Solving [CPS] model, as described in the book The Explosive Child. Dr. Ross Greene developed this model specifically for children who are inflexible and become easily frustrated, leading to explosive anger or melt downs. Utilizing the CPS model has been found to help reduce and alleviate explosive or meltdown behavior, as parents and kids learn to solve problems together in ways that are mutually satisfying and help reduce conflict. CPS has been applied to "ordinary" kids as well as to children with disabilities or mental health issues, and used with children with a wide range of social, emotional and behavioral challenges. It can also be used by school staff which allows for consistency in the child’s life. In this training we will explore reasons why your child becomes easily frustrated, how to work through the frustrating moments, and how to take a proactive approach in preventing the explosive behavior. We will also go over the steps of Collaborative Problem Solving. Come join us and learn with other parents and caregivers how this model can be applied in your home.
Trainer: Nicole Russell, MSW, ORPARC Family Support Specialist

Estate Planning and Tax Issues for Adoptive/Guardian Families
This training will provide a survey of family estate planning issues, including a discussion of the purpose and use of wills, trusts, powers of attorney, and advance health care directives. Learn about the importance of stating a preference for the appointment of a guardian and conservator for your minor children in your estate planning documents. A portion of this training will be devoted to tax preparation issues commonly encountered by adoptive and guardian families.
Trainer: Janice Hazel, Attorney at Law

Guilt Free Parenting in Adoption
"Guilt Free Parenting in Adoption" hopes to provide tips and tools for empowering parents and care-providers to set aside our guilt-ridden responses to our imagined inadequacies as parents. When we do our best with the information that we have, we can hold our head’s high; with out guilt or harsh self judgments.
Trainer: Pam Lewis

Heal the Child
When living and working with children who have experienced trauma, abuse, and neglect, we often get the feeling that we are continually treating symptoms rather than really getting to the root of our child's problems. Love and Time, life's greatest healers, have not been enough on their own to heal a child who has been through what our children have experienced. Understanding how a child's brain works and develops, and understanding the impact that trauma has on this process, can shed some light on this problem and point us toward an effective solution.

Our brains consist of three main systems, which develop in this order: our brain stem, which controls our survival functions; our midbrain, which controls our emotions and much of how we relate to the outside world, including that most important function of attachment; and finally our cortex, which controls our cognitive processes such as language, logic, and abstract thought. Trauma experienced early in life mostly impacts the first two systems, yet most of the methods that we use to treat the issues that are a result of this impact are based on functions used by the cortex, and therefore are not the best match for working with these problems.

There are, however, methods that repair damage to these lower systems. With joyful play and movement, we can directly access these parts of the brain and help children to heal at the root level. The “Heal the Child” workshop, offered by Jon Bredal and Doug Lofdahl, will give you the tools to work effectively with attachment issues, sensory integration, emotional regulation, ADHD, and other physical and emotional symptoms of early childhood trauma. You will learn games, physical activities, songs and stories that will help you use these tools in an effective and fun way. The whole family will enjoy these activities, so no coercion or power plays are necessary. Not only will these tools help your child actually repair, reorganize, and re-pattern functions at the root level, but this work will also make all of the cognitive based work you are already doing so much more effective. Using these same methods, adult can learn to stay calm and focused on helping your child, even during the most extreme behavior. This is so vitally important and yet so hard to do! The goal of this workshop is to give you a complete toolbox that you can really use to help your child heal, allowing them to develop into a healthy, happy child, able to reach their full potential.
Trainers: Jon Bredal, jonbredal@earthlink.net, and Doug Lofdahl, dflofdahl@gmail.com

How to Manage Stress and Keep it from Managing You
Many of us are so busy keeping up with the pace of our lives, work, and caring for others that we neglect to take care of the most precious commodity and tool we have to get things done: ourselves! Learn how the practice of Balanced Self-Renewal can become an essential habit of well-being and optimal living. This workshop will examine the impact of stress on our lives, the toll of compassion fatigue on caretakers and offer practical tips and techniques that anyone can practice to ensure self-renewal and manage their life stress.
Trainer: Kelly DeLany, ORPARC Program Manager

Internet Safety for Children
This training for parents utilizes curriculum from NetSmartz with permission of the Oregon Department of Justice, Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. This training provides: 1) An Overview of on-line risks for Children and Teens, and 2) Tips and Information for Parents to keep children safe on-line.
Trainer: Kelly DeLany, ORPARC Program Manager

Lifestory Books: A Communication Tool
Do you have a pile of pictures, documents and mementos stored in a shoe box that you have been telling yourself “ok, this is the year?” This training offers assistance to families and professionals who both want to begin creating a Lifestory Book and those who want to more fully develop an already existing Lifestory Book. Learn about the importance of a Lifestory Books, where to start, “do’s and the don’ts,” how to make the information age appropriate and much more.
Trainer: Toni Ferguson, MSW, ORPARC Family Support Specialist

Long Term Success in Adoption
Experts and families have identified definitive key factors and character strengths that allow families to “hang in there” during the difficult times that occur in the life of an adoption. This workshop will discuss strategies for disruption prevention, research on disruption, and suggestions from seasoned parents and adopted children on what they needed and how they made it through.
Trainer: Kelly DeLany, ORPARC Program Manager

Openness in Adoption: Making lifelong decisions about openness for your adopted child
Adopted children, like all children, need to know who they are and where they came from. At the same time it is the role of adoptive parents to provide safety and protection to their children, especially when they may have had significantly traumatic pasts. This training will offer ways to balance a child’s need to connect with their birth family and the need for safety. The trainer will review things to consider when making these lifelong decisions for (and with) your child as well as strategies to help make openness work. The training will offer a summary of common challenges and roadblocks with openness in child welfare adoptions. The goal is that participants will gain tools and ideas to provide a connection to their child’s roots that work with their family system.
Trainer: Nicole Russell, MSW, ORPARC Family Support Specialist
Trainer: Toni Ferguson, MSW, ORPARC Family Support Specialist

Manteniendo Relaciones Abiertas: Haciendo decisiones a largo plazo para su niño adoptado con la familia biológica
Los niños adoptados y los niños que se encuentran en el sistema de crianza—tal como todos los niños—necesitan saber quiénes son y de dónde vienen. A su vez es el papel de los padres adoptivos y los padres de crianza proveer un lugar de seguridad y protección a los niños, especialmente cuando los niños hayan vivido pasados traumáticos. Este entrenamiento les dará a los padres sugerencias que ofrecen un equilibrio entre la necesidad del niño de mantener una conexión con su familia biológica y su necesidad de seguridad. El entrenador revisará cuestiones para considerar cuando usted hace estas decisiones por (y con) su niño tal como estrategias que ayudarán a que un plan de adopción-colocación abierta con la familia biológica se implemente y funcione. Se ofrecerá un resumen de los obstáculos y desafíos comunes al implementar un plan de adopción-colocación abierta con la familia biológica en el sistema de bienestar infantil. La meta del entrenamiento es que los participantes ganen herramientas e ideas de cómo proveer una conexión con los raices del niño (familia biológica) que encaja bien con la dinámica de su familia.
Entrenador: Michael McGrorty, Especialista de Recursos
Entrenadora: Sandra Carter Templeman, Especialista de apoyo familiar

Parenting Children Who Have Very Challenging Behaviors
For parents of adopted or foster children with challenging behaviors, it can be difficult to identify the sources or causes of the behaviors, much less to know how to respond appropriately. A combination of elements may be involved and background information may be sketchy. This overview will look at many of the developmental considerations that are typical among such children including fetal alcohol or drug exposure, physical and emotional trauma, genetic conditions such as bipolar disorder, etc. and will look at behaviors that might typically arise from such influences. We will focus on helping parents locate resources for diagnosis and treatment and introduce literature and other resources to help you cope and thrive as a family.
Trainer: Toni Ferguson, MSW, ORPARC Family Support Specialist
Trainer: John Bennett, ORPARC Resource Specialist

Positive Parenting
This training is based on the 1-2-3 Magic: Effective Discipline for Children 2-12 developed by Dr. Thomas W. Phelan and Parent Magic, Inc. Learn more about ways to encourage “start” behaviors, those behaviors that you would like for your children to display, and to address “stop” behaviors, those that you would rather your children not display. This training provides helpful tools for parenting a wide range of children. This training is not designed to replace any therapeutic interventions or to give direction on parenting children with high special needs or severe behavioral issues.
Trainer: Hillary Hyde

Promoting attachment from infancy through adulthood--with special issues for teens
How do we bring out the best in children and teens after they have had a rocky start with grief and trauma? How can we help them to connect better in families, developing lasting attachments? This workshop is a practical look at the parenting of children and teens who are entering their foster or adoptive families needing some extra help in developing attachment, empathy, self-control, emotional connections, and self-acceptance. This will be a practical and hope-filled day that includes the latest in brain-based research and how to apply it.
Trainer: Deborah Gray, MSW, MPA

Promoting Positive Sexual Development after Abuse and Neglect
Interventions, parenting tools and information to assist foster and adoptive families to facilitate positive sexual development in their children following the aftermath of sexual abuse.
Experts Joan McNamara, MS, and Bernie McNamara, LCSW, will explore how these issues evolve over the course of the child’s development and impact the family. Topics will include:

• Promoting positive sexual identification & development
• How parents can promote healthy relationships to increase well being and minimize problem behaviors
• Parenting children recovering from sexual abuse and facilitating children’s recovery

Trainers: Joan McNamara, MS, and Bernie McNamara, LCSW

Recognizing Early Signs of Substance Abuse in Teens
Guest speaker Dr. Erica Finstad, from the Center for Family and Adolescent Research (CFAR), will discuss early signs of possible drug problems that parents should be aware of, as well as information on recent drug trends seen in teens attending CFAR’s programs.
Trainer: Erica Finstad, Ph.D., Licensed Clinical Psychologist

Reconociendo las señales del abuso de sustancias en los adolescentes
Este entrenamiento presentará las señales de posibles problemas del uso de las drogas que los padres deben de saber igual que información de las estadísticas recientes sobre el uso de sustancias en los adolescentes.
Entrenador: Michael McGrorty, Coordinador de entrenamientos y Apoyo familiar bilingüe del Centro de Recursos Pos-adoptivos de Oregon

Relative Issues in Adoption: Grief and Loss
There are unique issues of grief and loss that accompany Kinship care and grandparenting. Join us as we discuss these common issues and challenges, as well as the changes in lifestyle, relationships, roles, and boundaries. Learn some coping skills, and about resources available to relative caregivers, and meet others traveling this path.
Trainer: Kelly DeLany, ORPARC Program Manager, John Bennett, ORPARC Resource Specialist

Sensory Integration
Children with sensory processing dysfunction may exhibit problems in a variety of areas throughout their daily routine. They may show early feeding problems, have poor eating patterns and become picky eaters; they may have aggressive behavior, pushing bumping, banging, biting hands; perhaps they have coordination and balance problems, appearing clumsy or careless. These children might be sensitive to touch, avoiding contact with others, and insist the tags be removed from their clothing; have difficulty focusing, show delays in motor or language skills, or have difficulty with self-modulation (temper tantrums, behavior outbursts). Attend this workshop to learn practical tools to implement so your child becomes successful at home and in the community and learn about educational and community resources available to help.
Trainer: Kersti Pettit-Kekel
Trainer: Lynette Burke

Strategies for an itchy, smelly, loud, bright world: Sensory Integration Challenges
Presented by Oregon Technical Assistance Corporation (OTAC)
This workshop introduces sensory integration challenges from the perspective of how your child might be experiencing them. Participants will gain an understanding of the characteristics of sensory challenges and how to support your child both at home and working with professionals. The following topics will be introduced:

• What IS a sensory processing challenge
• Sensory challenges in autism spectrum disorders and fetal alcohol syndrome
• How to recognize and detect when your child may be experiencing a sensory integration challenges/behaviors
• Practical solutions and accommodations you can do right now and long term strategies for the future
• How to work with professionals
• How to explain to friends, family, and caregivers what kind of support your child needs
• Resources and References to learn more will be provided

Trainer: Stephanie Hunter

Supernanny Video and Discussion
Join ORPARC staff and other adoptive parents in watching an episode of Supernanny. Afterward, there will be a discussion about how the methods and techniques applied in the show may work for parents to help transform behavior.

Supporting Sibling Relationships within the Adoptive Family (Birth, Adoptive & Foster Children)
When a child is added to an existing family system through adoption or guardianship, family roles and dynamics shift and change. When these children come with backgrounds of significant trauma, these changes and shifts can become very difficult for family members, especially the children already living in the home. The purpose of this training is to assist parents and families to provide support to all the children in the home. The training will include discussion of expectations, losses and coping strategies for these blended families. The training is based on a curriculum from the Attachment and Bonding Center of Ohio titled, "Supporting Brothers and Sisters: Creating a family by Birth, Foster Care and Adoption."

Talking with Children about Adoption and Living in Out-of-Home Care
Have you ever wondered how to share your child’s adoption story with your child? Addressing questions about why they are in foster or relative care? Or how to do this at different ages? Do you wonder if you should talk about the more difficult parts of your child’s history? Are you being told to be open and honest with your child but not being told how to do this? Learn how different resources such as children’s books, videos and life story books can help with this communication gap. This workshop will give adoptive/foster/guardian parents tools for talking with their children about adoption and living in out of home care.
Trainer: Toni Ferguson, MSW, ORPARC Family Support Specialist

Hablando con su hijo acerca de la adopción
¿Se ha preguntado alguna vez cómo va a compartir la historia de adopción con su hijo? O, ¿a qué edad debería usted hablar con su hijo acerca de diferentes temas de adopción? ¿Le están diciendo otras personas que usted debe de ser honesto y abierto con su hijo en cuanto a su historia de adopción pero nadie le está dando las herramientas para ayudarle? Aprenda cómo los libros de la vida, las películas, los terapeutas, y otros recursos pueden ayudar a que se comunique con su niño y la importancia de una comunicación abierta. Este entrenamiento les dará herramientas a los padres adoptivos y profesionales para que puedan hablar con niños acerca de su historia de adopción.
Entrenador: Michael McGrorty, Coordinador de entrenamientos y Apoyo familiar bilingüe del Centro de Recursos Pos-adoptivos de Oregon

Transracial/Transcultural Issues in Adoption
This workshop is for anyone who is placing or raising a child of a different race than their own. This is an overview of the unique issues of transracial parenting. A national video production entitled Struggle for Identity: Issues of Transracial Adoptions will be screened, followed by a group discussion. This session will provide tools, resources, and support strategies to encourage the healthy development of transracial parenting.
Trainer: Astrid Dabbeni, Executive Director, Adoption Mosaic

Trauma, Loss, and Attachment: Implications for Therapy and Parenting
This seminar will present an overview of the crucial role of a secure attachment and intersubjectivity on a child’s neurological, affective, cognitive, and behavioral development. The central role in attachment and intersubjectivity in enabling a child to resolve traumatic experiences will also be presented. Principles and strategies of psychotherapy and parenting which utilize attachment and intersubjectivity will be presented and discussed.
Trainer: Dr. Dan Hughes, Ph.D., author of Facilitating Developmental Attachment and Building the Bonds of Attachment

Book Discussion Group
Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew
Book by Sherrie Eldgridge
The book centers on the child's experience in adoption and provides great insight into the often unspoken perspective. The discussion covers entering your child’s world, understanding their grief and loss, as well as the hope they have experienced through adoption. Come join other parents and caregivers to discuss the important points raised in the book and how to apply them in your everyday life. It is recommended to read the first seven chapters beforehand, but it is not required to attend. The book is available in our lending library.
Trainer: Nicole Russell, MSW, ORPARC Family Support Specialist

Book Discussion Group
20 Things Adoptive Parents Need to Succeed
Book by Sherrie Eldridge
In her new book, 20 Things Adoptive Parents Need to Succeed, Sherrie Eldridge (author of Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew) here goes beyond those insights and shifts her focus to parents, offering encouragement and hope. She shares proven strategies and the moving narratives of nearly one hundred adoptive families, helping parents gain a deeper understanding of what is normal, both for their children and themselves. Come join other parents and caregivers to discuss the important points raised in the book and how to apply them in your everyday life. It is recommended to read the book beforehand, but it is not required to attend. The book is available for check-out at the ORPARC lending library. Contact ORPARC at 503-241-0799 or orparc@nwresource.org to check-out your own copy of the book.
Trainer: Nicole Russell, MSW, ORPARC Family Support Specialist

Understanding Attachment
This presentation is intended to increase awareness of the long term effects of early childhood experiences and how this relates to adoption and understand:

• What attachment is
• How healthy attachments form
• How problems begin
• Internal working models of relationships
• Emotional and behavioral consequences related to attachment
• How to move toward healing
• Parenting, therapy, and goals for care

Trainer: Lynne Herbert, LPC, Attachment Center of Central Oregon

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A program of Northwest Resource Associates. Funded by the State of Oregon Department of Human Services, Child Welfare. Copyright © 2010 Northwest Resource Associates and the Oregon Post Adoption Resource Center. All rights reserved. Privacy policy.