Intro:
Welcome to Conversations With Crosswinds Counseling. I’m your host Curtis Smith. Every week on this podcast we talk about all things mental health. Sometimes stress or anxiety. Perhaps you’re burned out. Well this is the podcast for you. We ssit down with the wonderful counselors at Crosswinds Counseling and have a great conversation every week. Let’s dive into this week’s episode.
Podcast # 42 | Adoptive & Foster Family Therapy
Curtis: Hi, everyone and welcome to conversations with Crosswinds Counseling. I’m Curtis Smith, joining us today, Sheronda Moore. Sheronda, is one of the amazing counselors here at Crosswinds Counseling. Sheronda, thanks for being with us on the podcast.
Sheronda: Thanks for having me.
Curtis: We’re talking about something that is so critical in our society, and that’s mental health for families and parents who are going through foster care and adoption, and being in that process is so critical because we have so many kids in need of healthy families, and boy it can break your heart to see what’s going on with kids who are in need of fostering. In need of permanent parents. What are your tips to folks out there who are either going through that, or may be considering becoming foster parents and adopted parents?
Sheronda: Yeah. One of the things that I think gets overlooked as we’re thinking about some of the trauma that these kids go through, across you know the entire conundrum for age ranges for them is parental mental health. You’re expected to look at providing a safe and supportive environment, but a lot of that comes from providing consistent stable parenting, and there’s so many challenges and so many ways that the mental health of potential adoptive parents and foster parents gets overlooked. And you’re trained to be trauma-informed, and to meet the needs of the child, but also too – not necessarily equipped to handle some of the parental distress that might come from raising a child with special needs and a lot of trauma.
Curtis: Yeah, and I know from talking to a number of therapists over the years, it’s very hard to provide safety and a good mental health space for a child if you don’t have that yourself. So sometimes we do a good job of taking care of others, or focusing on others without remembering to take care of ourselves. That seems like a good step one for a foster care parent.
Sheronda: Yeah. I think so too. One of the mantras that I try to live and practice by as a therapist, is that I want to be doing the thing that I’m encouraging other people to do. And so talking about this topic is near and dear to me because I’m doing it. I’m a foster parent with ambitions to adopt a child, and so I’ve been met with my own mental health challenges and stresses, and it does take a village. So, I would say that that’s the first tip, is to find your village and find your home base and find something that grounds you, because you’re going to need it. It’s an incredibly humbling experience. So that would probably be the first tip, to find a village.
Curtis: Well, let me ask you about your personal experience. What, as you’ve gotten into it, what has been unexpected? What was your mindset coming in? What were your expectations? And what has it actually looked like? And how has that differed?
Sheronda: Yeah. I laugh with my husband that I have a lot of textbook knowledge. Right. I had all of the – all of the things, and the coping strategies, and all of the knowledge on trauma informed focused therapy. As an occupational therapist, as well, I’ve worked with kids that have had some developmental issues or challenges as well. So, I felt like I had all of this knowledge, and all of these things, so I was un – I was pleasantly and not so pleasantly surprised at how it feels to live and to take on someone else’s trauma, and to do that in a way that’s graceful. To do that in a way that provides empathy and compassion and grace for not only them but yourself in trauma lived and experienced vicariously from somebody else is different. It’s raw. It’s humbling. It’s activating. And that was very unexpected for me. I felt like I always had a frame as a therapist for listening and sitting with trauma in this context, and so it’s different living with it. And so, I think that that’s why focusing on your own mental health becomes so much more important. We had to set rituals and routines for us.
Curtis: Nothing about it has caused you to waver though. You’re hopeful to be an adoptive parent at some point. You’re hoping that this is the path towards not just fostering, but permanent family unification. How do you stay strong in that? How do you stay focused on the end goal when there is trauma and there is unexpectedness to this? How do you stay – how do you keep your eye on the prize?
Sheronda: Yeah, well one of the things is people can adapt, and the brain is remarkable in healing from trauma when given the right environment. I think that’s what keeps me going. My spirituality, and my faith, and so I – that’s why I think it’s important to be grounded in something because that’s what keeps you going. I think our village keeps us hopeful as well, and so I always go back to the – find your village. Find the support, because people can heal from trauma. It doesn’t always look like this straight up and down, you know linear pathway, it can look a lot of different ways, and I think that if people can remain hopeful – set their expectations, maybe in line with what reality might be, then you might get through it.
Curtis: To me, just from the outside looking in, it feels like that unexpected nature of things is one of the biggest challenges. I think when you have your own child, they’re there from day one and you kind of see them grow into this full-fledged human being who has issues and problems and you’re in it from day one, and you’re just – and so you kind of know what the next phase is going to look like. Whereas, with foster care, or adoption, there’s so much unknown. It’s – how big is that in this? How big of a piece of the puzzle is that? This unexpected… I don’t know what’s next, and I’m not 100% sure what I got myself into.
Sheronda: Yeah, well that, I think that’s a good opportunity for empathy, and that’s where we’ve landed, because as destabilizing as it can be for the adults, you now, have a window into how destabilizing it is for them, and the same things that you can give yourself to ground yourself, to ground yourself and to regulate yourself, right. Consistency, stability, routine means – things that feed you can also feed them. And so, if people can lean into that unexpected nature, you’ve got a really really good chance of understanding what your kiddo might be experiencing in their own unstable environment, because it is. And I think that’s one of the beautiful things about it. Is that you get to walk somebody else’s walk, and we can’t always put ourselves in that shoe, in another person’s shoes.
Curtis: Yeah, you mentioned the village a couple of times. So, community is obviously very important. Perhaps, a lot of people haven’t considered seeing a therapist, and getting counseling while going through this. Talk about the importance of perhaps connecting with a counselor, and what the benefits of that are as you go through the foster care to adoption process.
Sheronda: Oh yeah. One of the things that we were pleasantly surprised about with our adoption process is the focus that our stakeholders had on us, making sure we had the right resources. Family therapy was one of them. And so, for any perspective adoptive parent, that would be key for integrating this child into your family, into your life, and how those dynamics shift, but also too, having a place for you as an individual to talk about maybe some of the grief that might come. The feelings of guilt that might come from loving a child that’s being taken away from a biological parent. Dealing with some of the dynamics, the anxiety, and the depression that might come from it. So, absolutely, I think that having your own outlet is a necessary component at any stage, whether you’re in discernment about becoming a potential adoptive or a foster parent, because there are many ways to do that, but as you make decisions, as you meet and get to know children, but also too, dealing with the grief that might come from them being unified with their biological parents or even a kinship adoption, and so there are a lot of layers.
Curtis: Yeah. Wow. Deep stuff. Good stuff. It’s such a critical need, as I mentioned earlier, across Indiana, across the United States. There are so many kids who need good healthy homes. So Sheronda, thanks for being with us on the podcast, but even more so, thanks for what you’re doing for that young life. We hope and pray that goes well for you.
Sheronda: Thank you.
Curtis: If you would like to connect with Sheronda, or any of the tremendous counselors at Crosswinds Counseling, you can find them all at crosswindscounseling.org, and of course you can keep checking in on the podcast. We will see you next time.
Outro:
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