Educational Webinars

Understanding Grief and Loss in Adoption

This webinar explores grief and loss in adoption and delves into the impact of grief and loss on adoptive children, examining how these complex emotions manifest in distinctive ways for adoptees. This webinar explores the stages of grief and highlights the specific behaviors and needs at each developmental stage: pre-school through young adult. Additionally, this webinar discusses practical strategies for adoptive parents to support their child’s emotional development and stabilization within the family. By understanding grief and loss, we can foster resilience and healing, ensuring a supportive adjustment and stronger bonds within adoptive families.

Samantha Sutherland, MSW, presented the webinar: Understanding Grief and Loss in Adoption. Samantha is a social worker for Holt International and has over 15 years of experience working with children and families. Samantha has previous experience working with Child Protective Services, private foster agencies and community counseling. Samantha is passionate about helping families and children find stability and happiness.

Navigating Birth Family Relationships

This webinar is an insightful exploration of the joys and complexities of navigating birth-family relationships. In this event, you’ll hear from three adoptees who share their personal journeys of reunion with members of their birth family. Each story offers a unique perspective on the challenges and triumphs of these connections, inviting deeper understanding and reflection into the adoptee experience. Don’t miss this opportunity to hear their perspectives on adoption and identity in the context of birth family relationships.

Creating Healthy Digital Habits in Your Home

Creating Healthy Digital Habits in Your Home is a webinar dedicated to helping adoptive parents examine and pursue digital health regarding their kids and screens. Technology is not going away and it’s imperative that parents become involved in creating new cultural norms of digital health. Digital health is critical in order to reduce loneliness, depression, anxiety and suicide in a socially isolated society. If technology is a struggle in your home (and maybe even drives you crazy), you want some guidance on creating boundaries, or if you are just curious on how other navigate these issues, this webinar is for you!

Our presenters are Holt Social Worker, Kaitlin Torrenzano, LSW and Senior Director of Clinical Services, Celeste Snodgrass, LCSW.

Overcoming Blocked Care

Is your parenting journey turning out differently than you imagined? You had so much love to give, but now you feel ashamed and bewildered by your lack of compassion. You may be experiencing blocked care—a self-protective mechanism in your nervous system that makes it difficult to connect with your child and maintain compassion. The good news is you can heal from blocked care, and compassion can be rekindled in your heart. Learn practical steps and simple practices to begin your journey of reclaiming compassion for your child and yourself.

Lisa C. Qualls serves the adoption community from her unique perspective as a birth mom, former foster youth, foster mom, and adoptive mom. Lisa is a TBRI Practitioner, co-founder of Adoption Wise, and parent coach. She is also the author of  The Connected Parent: Real-Life Strategies for Building Trust and Attachment (with Dr. Karyn Purvis), and co-author of Reclaim Compassion: The Adoptive Parent’s Guide to Overcoming Blocked Care with Neuroscience and Faith. Lisa lives in Idaho with her husband Russ. They have twelve children by birth and adoption and two beautiful granddaughters.

Parenting Triggers

Disrespect. Lying. Not listening. Tone of voice. Nasty words. Blatant defiance. When you experience any of these from your child it can push you to explode. This webinar covers how to manage the typical parenting triggers that most of us experience on a daily basis.  Practical and easy to follow tips guided by the principles of Trust Based Relational Intervention (TBRI®) and other connected strategies will be presented by Pam Shepard, LCSW. Pam is Holt’s Supervisor of Clinical Services, the mom of two teenagers, a therapist and a TBRI practitioner and mentor.

Healthy Sleep for Your Adoptee

Examining the Foundations of Healthy Sleep Through the Lens of Trauma. One of the major concerns for any parent—whether adoptive or biological—when bringing a new child into the home is sleep (or the potential lack of it!).  Will my baby or child sleep? Am I doing it “right”? Will I ever feel rested again? How can I help my child go to sleep and stay asleep? Exhaustion affects behavior for both children and parents and can zap a lot of the joy out of life. Many adoptive parents struggle with sleep issues regarding their child, and how to address them in a connected and healthy manner. What may work for a biological child won’t work for an adopted child who has attachment breaks and an unknown history.

Allison Ezell, M.Ed., is a Certified Pediatric Sleep Consultant and mom of four from Dallas, Texas. She is also a Holt parent and welcomed her son  home from China with her husband in 2016. With a special passion for helping foster and adoptive families navigate sleep issues, Allison brings a unique angle to her work, as she is able to bring a trauma-informed perspective to a field where it has long been desperately needed. Allison founded Dwell Pediatric Sleep in 2021 and has served thousands of sleep-deprived families through consultations, digital resources, and corporate speaking.

Helping Your Child Develop Social Skills

Parents, teachers, mental health professional and kids themselves report how difficult it was to live through the pandemic and the ripple effects that followed. Add this on top of the multiple layers of complicated history that children who are adopted were already dealing with, and it only compounded the struggles. One area of concern seen is the delayed social development of children. This webinar focuses on practical aspects and tools for parents to  help your child grow in their social skills (focusing on elementary age children 5-12 years old).

Our presenters are Holt Social Worker, Samantha Sutherland, MSW and retired Holt Social Worker Gary Sampson, LCSW.

Puzzling Behaviors: How to Put the Pieces Together

As parents, sometimes we look at our child’s behavior and it leaves us scratching our heads at best, all the way to feeling angry and frustrated and overwhelmed. As we chase the why behind the behavior, it can be exhausting to try to connect the dots and have empathy for our child who has these seemingly willful big, puzzling behaviors. Things like lying, stealing, foul language, disrespect, hoarding and aggression can be very concerning and triggering for parents – and understandably so. We worry about what it means for our child now and what we perceive the effects to be on our child in the future. This webinar presentation is practical, educational and supportive for adoptive parents who are facing these issues.

Holt’s Supervisor of Clinical Services, Pam Shepard, LCSW and TBRI Practitioner/Mentor takes a look at these big, puzzling behaviors through an adoption-competent and trauma informed lens, and gives insight into how parents can put the pieces together to support their kids.  

Supporting Sibling Relationships in Adoption: Nurturing All Your Children

Many caregivers ask the question, “what about my other children?,” when it comes to how adoption affects their families. In this class, we will deepen our understanding of the needs of children already in the home through discussing research evidence specifically on this family role. Plus, we will learn new, effective communication and connection strategies that not only meet the needs of resident children but also meet the needs of the whole family. Caregivers will be equipped with proven strategies that have led to decreased stress and increased satisfaction and connection in adoptive families.

Dr. Jana Hunsley is a psychologist who offers consulting, training, coaching, and counseling for families and professionals involved in foster care and adoption. Jana is also the co-founder of Camp Together, a nonprofit offering therapeutic family camps for families impacted by trauma. Jana received her doctorate in experimental psychology from the Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development at Texas Christian University where her research focused on understanding and meeting the needs of every member of adoptive and foster families through post-adoption supportive services. Over the years, Jana has worked in various clinical settings as a therapist with children and youth who have experienced trauma, including residential treatment, institutional care, schools, child welfare, and juvenile detention. Jana credits her passion for this work to her siblings who were adopted when she was a teenager.