Connections Matter: Supporting Birth Family Relationships (Montgomery)

This training will focus on best practices surrounding birth family connections for adoptive and foster families. Participants will learn about best strategies in honoring birth family relationships during open semi-open and closed relationships and how to process missing and difficult pieces of information about children’s histories with them in ways that are affirming yet truthful.

In this interactive training presented by counselor and author Tony Hynes participants will also learn about common misconceptions about birth families and how those misconceptions negatively impact the relationships birth families and adoptive/foster families have with one another. Participants will also learn about best practices in honoring cultural histories/identities of their family members.

In addition those in attendance will also hear how grief and loss impact different members of birth adoptive kinship and foster families and how to honor the losses we feel in a family integrative model.

Professionals will earn 5.5 Total CE Credits. This event is excellent for both foster and adoptive parents as well. All participants must register in advance via the CAS Training Website. The Montgomery in-person event can be found here https://bit.ly/4bGzmFa.

About our trainer:

Tony Hynes, M.A., Ph.D. Candidate, was adopted by his parents, Mary and Janet, in the mid-1990s. He writes about his experiences growing up as both an interracial adoptee and as a child growing up in an LGBTQ-headed household in his memoir "The Son With Two Moms," a text that has been cited in the family court system to highlight best practices. Today, Tony advocates for families like his, having served on the Board of Directors for organizations that help to highlight adoptive families from diverse upbringings. He has been invited to be a speaker at conferences on adoption and foster care throughout the nation and has a passion for speaking up for children and families touched by challenges in the adoption and foster care system.

Tony completed his master's thesis in Sociology on the psychology of children within the same-sex-headed household and is now a Ph.D. Candidate at the Univ. of Maryland Baltimore County. His dissertation focuses on social connectedness among adult, interracial adoptees. Tony’s work and writing have been featured in The Atlantic, and he is a contributing author to books such as What White Parents Should Know About Transracial Adoption and Adoption Unfiltered. As the Training Specialist at the Center for Adoption Support and Education, Tony has designed innovative training curriculums that help families and professionals respond to evaluation and assessment tools that encapsulate holistic pictures of adoptees and foster youth. In 2021, Tony started the adoptee author series, to center adoptee experiences and expertise in public discourse.

The Son With Two Moms: https://www.amazon.com/Son-Two-Moms-Tony-Hynes/dp/1783017457Why We Shouldn't Call Adoptees Lucky: https://magazine.catapult.co/people/stories/essay-adopted-why-we-shouldnt-call-adoptees-lucky-tony-hynesI Am the Black Adoptee of White Parents: What George Floyd Taught Me About Race and the Adoption Industry: https://medium.com/hynes-on-adoption/i-am-the-black-adoptee-of-white-parents-what-george-floyd-taught-me-about-race-and-the-adoption-5052180d8b56

Host or Publisher Children's Aid Society of Alabama