Websites

I didn’t get this written in a very timely fashion today because I spent most of the morning on the telephone. For 90 minutes I spoke with Andrew Bridge, author of Hope’s Boy. Before making my next telephone appointment, I paid the guy who brought me more firewood and dealt with the fitness tech who (partially) repaired our treadmill. (It doesn’t elevate now … oh darn. I never liked that anyway!) My next phone call was with Jeff Katz, the driving force behind Listening to Parents—a nationwide effort to improve communication between foster and adoptive parents and the child welfare system. I thoroughly enjoyed both conversations and I look forward to future communications with these two gentlemen. Andrew begins a book tour shortly. I took… [more]

I get many different electronic newsletters, from many different sources. Check them out and sign up for what looks interesting to you. They are: Evan B. Donaldson Institute Adoption Newsletter Bazelon Mental Health Policy Reporter National Resource Center for Family-Centered Practice & Permanency Planning Child Welfare Information Gateway Children’s Bureau Express The California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse for Child Welfare The Center for Family Connections Too darn bad I don’t have time to read all of them. I have them each slotted to go into a file in my Outlook folder. If I’m not totally crazy when they bounce into my Inbox, I skim them to see what they offer. Usually I’m juggling a hundred things already and they go on… [more]

Our sermon for Father's Day was delivered by a guest preacher … and what a preacher he was. My family belongs to a very large, very prominent Methodist church. We joined when there were 400 or so members, in 1994. Now there are over 15,000. Our pastor has written books and is well known throughout the country for his intellect, his preaching ability, his business acumen, and perhaps most importantly, his outreach to non-religious or nominally religious folks in the community. Because of his visibility, our pastor knows and meets many influential folks. It was during a trip to Oklahoma to meet with Billy Graham that our pastor met last night’s guest preacher, Carey Casey. Carey Casey is an African American Baptist… [more]

In my previous post I mentioned Beatitude House, an attachment program located in North Carolina. A booklet created by Fawn and Matthew Bradley entitled Had we known then what we know now… addresses the disparity between expectations and reality that often occurs when one adds a traumatized child to one’s family. One section in this booklet quotes many parents as having stated: We would have felt less isolated if we had found professionals that specialize in attachment disorder.” No kidding… The Bradleys ask, “How can something as devastating as this be minimized and overlooked by so many?” They go on to say, “Attachment disorder resonates deep within us to preverbal memory. Fifty years after John Bowlby addressed the World Health Organization, his work and the work… [more]

I have a ton of really awesome resources sitting around here on my bookshelves, so I am going to start through them and share snippets of wisdom with you from some of my favorite attachment gurus. Beatitude House in North Carolina is the ministry of Matthew and Fawn Bradley. I frequently have the pleasure of seeing them at conferences throughout the United States. Their ministry is just that—a Christian based approach to many aspects of attachment therapy and healing. One of the booklets they distribute is titled Had we known then what we know now… It is a great resource, chock full of misconceptions adoptive parents have going into adoption, with suggestions on how to redirect those misconceptions to line up more with… [more]