The Adoption Medicine Clinic at the University of Minnesota offers a comprehensive child wellness assessment for children who have experienced early adversity. With a team consisting of a pediatrician or nurse practitioner, occupational therapist, and child psychologist, the assessment includes a medical, developmental, and mental health screening. 1. Children in foster care and those adopted
Helping New Foster Kids Transition Into Your Family
This content was originally published by Creating a Family, the national infertility education and support nonprofit. Foster children who come to your home have likely endured a great deal of loss and hurt before coming through your front door. Helping new foster kids transition into your family can be challenging for everyone, as you try
Gaining Family and Insight through Post Adoption Reunion
Christina, adopted as an infant, spent her life wondering if her birth mother thought about her. She enjoyed a happy childhood with her adoptive parents, who adopted her in the late 60’s. Yet, throughout her life, she struggled with unanswered questions about her biological parents. Christina found answers to her questions when she began her
Coping with Fear of the Unknown When Adopting
This content was originally published by Creating a Family, the national infertility education and support nonprofit. When most of us think about becoming a parent, we dream of a healthy child. We may not expect perfection, but sure hope that our child does not have significant special needs. So how do you cope with the
Join us for Fidgety Fairy Tales, The Mental Health Musicals
Come join us Monday, April 8 for Fidgety Fairy Tales This year Minnesota Association for for Children’s Mental Health joins us again in their 11th musical where familiar fairy tales are re-imagined to raise awareness about children’s mental health. With great music and gentle humor, this hour-long musical is fun for the whole family. This
Research Request | Adoptees and Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing
Heewon Lee, a Korean adoptee and genetic counseling graduate student at the University of Minnesota, is recruiting participants for a research study about direct-to-consumer genetic testing (e.g., 23andme, Ancestry DNA, Family Tree DNA) among domestic and internationally adopted adults. This study is unique as it will be one of the first studies to query both
14 Years Ago I Got “The Call”
On his birthday last week Tea (Sammy’s birthmom) texted to let me know she’d reached Sam to wish him a happy birthday. She said he told her he was “skating w/ a bunch of white ppl. Lol.” I wrote back, “Wait did he tell you that was his idea?! Going to a movie with a bunch of not
The Holidays When You’re Longing for a Baby Can Be So HARD
This content was originally published by Creating a Family, the national infertility education and support nonprofit. Let’s pause for just a moment to recognize that this season of joy is also a season of pain for some, including the 1 in 8 people who are suffering from infertility. The holidays when you’re longing for a
A Very Foster Christmas and an Adoptive New Year
Joyful Noize Productions is putting together a show celebrating the foster/adoption community and YOU are the stars. They have an open call for story tellers who want to share their first-person foster or adoption story—these can be foster/adopted youth, grown up youth, siblings, parents, and kinship folks. As a story teller, you will tell your
$1500 Adoption Grant Available for Home Study Approved Families
Adoption is Love Fund is still accepting applications for their grant. The $1,500 grant was created by an adoptive family hoping to help prospective adoptive parents with adoption expenses. Grants are awarded to singles, couples and families hoping to adopt through foster care adoption, domestic adoption, international adoption and same family adoption. Families must be waiting
