Our work with the Post-Adoption Consortium has allowed us to respond to issues particular to adoptive parents. It also has given the adoptive and foster parents an opportunity to become involved with our Peer Support Network. We'd like to encourage other professionals to refer families so that the families can decide if we have any programs or services that they'd like to access or become involved in in addition to our Match Program. The more families and diagnoses in our database, the better we can individualize the match request. Our ongoing collaborative efforts help connect parents, and also support the professional by getting their patient's family connected sooner with someone who has already been through the initial experience.
Families have a wealth of knowledge to share as well as being able to provide emotional support.
We would like to encourage all of our Supporting Parents to continue to update us about the changes in your family and the issues or special needs experiences that you'd like to be matched around. We also would like to hear from any parent who would be interested in supporting another family and feels that it is a good time for you to become a trained Supporting Parent. My Supporting Parent and I still talk, and our daughters have become friends and we are sometimes involved in the same activities. I can't help but think of the change in my life that she made and how her support freed me from the feeling that I needed to do it on my own. We were able to open up and ask for help and receive it nonjudgementally, as she knew exactly what we were feeling and dealing with.