How Adoption Education Has Changed

In the early years of international adoption, prospective parents received little formal education to prepare them to parent a child who joined their family through adoption. But as adoption social work practice has evolved, and as the needs of waiting children have grown more complex, Holt has expanded our efforts to ensure that families have all the training and resources they need — before and throughout their adoption journey.

In the past decade, the face of international adoption has changed. Children eligible for intercountry adoption are now older and/or part of a sibling group, and so often, have complex medical, developmental or emotional needs. In addition, children entering multicultural and/or transracial adoptive families in the U.S. face important issues of cultural, racial and adoptee identity, and these needs too must be addressed.

“But at Holt, we believe it’s in the best interest of children — and families — that adoptive parents receive the most comprehensive training, before and during the lifelong adoption journey, to ensure a successful outcome for all,” says Jodi Miyama, Holt’s senior executive of international adoption.

Here, Jodi shares how the adoptive parent education process has evolved over the years — and what it will look like in the future. 

What sort of preparation did adoptive parents receive in the early days of international adoption?

In the early days, very little preparation was required. Most children were young, under age 2, and considered healthy. The requirements were often driven by state adoption standards, which varied by state and did not always address the issues specific to international adoption.

When did that begin to change and why?

The first federal regulations regarding international adoption were implemented when the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption was ratified in the U.S. in 2008. These regulations provided a framework for the topics and number of training hours required.

In addition, many agencies, including Holt, began to understand the unique needs of both the children and prospective adoptive parents. As more adoptees joined families through international adoption, adoption professionals learned more about how to prepare parents to recognize their child’s needs, such as grief and loss, building attachment, identity and cultural needs (including the impact of racism), and medical and developmental issues. 

What does Holt’s parent education look like today?

Since 2008, the Hague Convention has required that parents receive 10 hours of formal training before adopting their child. But, based on our research and experience, the Holt curriculum is far more extensive. 

At Holt, families participate in three phases of parent training. Phase One is completed prior to homestudy approval and consists of 27-plus hours of training. During this time, adoptive parents complete online courses that focus on the seven core issues of adoption, trauma and child development, attachment styles, parenting tools, such as conflict resolution techniques, and accessing services and support.

Families who plan to adopt a child age 6 or older complete an additional 13 hours of training. This training focuses on topics such as childhood experiences, cultural experiences by country, school transitions, and trauma-informed parenting with tweens and teens. Parents are also required to read the book “Wisdom from Adoptive Families: Joys and Challenges in Older Child Adoption.”

Phase Two of the training takes place after a family’s homestudy has been approved and before a child is placed with their family. During this phase, parents read “The Connected Child,” a book about trust-based relational intervention (TBRI®), and complete one hour of adoption training per month until a child joins their family. (For example, if a family travels 18 months following their homestudy approval, they will need 18 credit hours of ongoing education.) Training options include attending Holt’s free monthly pre-placement support groups, listening to an adoption-focused podcast, attending a webinar or reading a book about adoption, childhood trauma or attachment.

Shortly before traveling, parents are required to participate in an additional three hours of child-specific training and fulfill any country-specific requirements. The focus of this training is to identify any potential needs the child might have, the strengths of the family, and any resources and services they may require after the child comes home.

Phase Three of the training occurs after the adoption placement has occurred. This phase of training is not required but strongly suggested since adoption is a lifelong journey. Holt’s post-adoption services team offers coaching, counseling support, education and resources to all adoptive parents and adoptees throughout their lifetime.

That’s a lot of training! What factors have contributed to such extensive education?

For one thing, the needs and profile of children waiting for adoption have changed significantly in the past 5 to 10 years, with more older children, sibling groups and children with complex special needs joining families. Today, foreign governments and non-governmental organizations like Holt focus on family strengthening services to help children stay with their birth families and promote domestic adoption — enabling children to remain in the country of their birth. As a result, we have seen a sharp increase in the number of domestic adoption placements in countries where we work. If both of these options are exhausted, a child may then become eligible for international adoption.

As a result, we’re typically seeing children 6 years and older — and in some countries 9 or 12 years and older — eligible for adoption. Many of these children have complex trauma due to their childhood experiences and complex emotional and developmental needs. We’re also seeing children in larger siblings groups and those with more complicated physical and medical needs. For these reasons, we’ve added additional components to our training program so that families are well prepared to meet their child’s needs.  

What other factors does Holt consider when developing adoptive parent education?

We feel it’s important to listen to the needs and concerns of adoptees, which are informed by their lived experiences. As a result, we now have training modules that focus on racial and adoptee identity, cultural identity, advice for white parents adopting transracially and the importance of “cultural mirrors,” meaning the connections adoptees make with other adoptees or other individuals with a shared heritage and culture.

We also offer adoptee-led camps annually so that adoptees can build connections, and so that we can continue to learn the top issues on adoptees’ minds. We have recently offered additional training on helping families navigate social media and screen time, and helping older adoptees maintain important connections and relationships with people in their birth country.

Does Holt regularly review their education and seek to improve it? What does the review process look like?

Yes! Several staff members, including our senior director of clinical services and the supervisor of our parent education and support team, review course content regularly. We also survey families on a regular basis to hear about their experiences — and we add or revise courses accordingly, as we learn from new experts or identify a new family or adoptee need.

Do you see any changes to Holt’s education in the future as international adoption evolves?

Holt recently introduced new education courses, focusing on trauma and the brain, post-adoption depression, practical parenting tools, managing expectations and more. This is an ongoing process as children’s needs evolve and as we learn from adoptive parents’ and adoptees’ lived experiences.

 As our training evolves, we’ll continue to use virtual technology that gives many children the chance to connect with their adoptive families before placement, allowing them to meet their parents, siblings and pets or see their room in advance.  We’ll continue to focus on preparing children prior to adoption. And we’ll continue to work with government leaders and our overseas partners on ways that we can explain adoption to children and ensure that they can participate in the decision and provide informed consent whenever possible.