The 12-year legacy of Post Adoption Support Services

The 12-year legacy of Post Adoption Support Services: ‘You saved our family’

Clara adopted her four nieces and nephews more than a decade ago, but she still relies on support from CCFH’s Post Adoption Support Services (PASS) to keep her family healthy and whole.

“Every time we needed something, you were there for us,” Clara said, adding that the trauma therapy her family received kept them together through the toughest times. “We knew that you were there not just to take care of my kids, but also take care of us too.”

Clara was one of dozens of adoptive parents and other supporters who gathered recently in Raleigh to celebrate the accomplishments of CCFH’s PASS program. PASS has served about 1,300 families since 2012 but is set to end this spring unless the center can secure private grants and donations.

“I am really proud to have been part of this program,” said Dr. Kate Murray, the CCFH’s PASS director. “I’ve grown up in this work…and I’ve had some wonderful mentors who have had the grace to welcome me even when I had no idea what I was doing.”

CCFH has provided assessment, mental health services, parent training and family support groups to adoptive families in 20 North Carolina counties under a state contract, but these services will be discontinued this spring because North Carolina’s Division of Social Services has dramatically changed its model for post adoption support – away from long-term mental health supports and toward short-term case management. The mental health issues in adoptive families may take years to present, and the need for adoption-competent mental health providers in NC far exceeds the current demand.

“I was so in over my head,’’ said Lora, a parent of four adopted children. “Just being able to talk with other families, to feel understood and to know other people who knew what I was going through…it was such a godsend.”

Cathy, an adoption case worker in Harnett County, said her families will miss the personalized care PASS provided in her rural county. “It didn’t matter if we had 1 parent or 25 parents show up for a training,” she said. “The (PASS clinician) came everytime and gave 150 percent.”

Even experienced caregivers like Linda, a 77-year-old great-grandmother who has adopted 14 children over the years, said she learned invaluable parenting skills by connecting with other families and adoption-competent clinicians like the ones trained by CCFH.

“I’m so thankful I was a part of this,” she said. “It was through the training I got that I was able to help my children become not a statistic but a success.”