course »Supporting Adoptive Families with Intersectional Identities: Discussions of Race, SOGIE, and Transracial Adoption

Date: 9/13/2019, 9:00 am—5:00 pm
County: Alameda County
CEUs: 6.5
Location: Oakland
Sponsor: Fred Finch Youth & Family Services
Phone: 510-482-2244
Foster parenting and adoptive parenting can be both wonderfully rewarding and distinctly challenging. Today’s training will explore the ways that complex identity journeys occur in adoptive families. In this full day training, we will examine common strengths and challenges encountered by youth of color fostered or adopted by White families. If foster and adoptive parents are not considering racial identity development as a critical part of a youth’s needs while in care, then accidental harm can be done and youth in care can feel isolated and misunderstood.

In the afternoon we will shift our focus and discuss the distinct needs of youth in foster care and in adoptive homes who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, gender expansive, non-binary or transgender. Youth on a distinct sexual orientation/gender identity (SOGIE) journey as foster youth and in adoptive families also need specific kinds of support to be safe, supported and thrive. This training is designed to examine the strengths and challenges involved in supporting families raising youth with multiple intersecting identities, and to provide concrete related support strategies.