Workshops

Preparing Children for Placements and Transitions

ID: 5980WEB

Formerly titled: Preparing Children for Adoption. Whatever our role, all professionals interacting with foster and adoptive children have an opportunity to contribute to a child’s understanding of why they must transition to a new placement. While society may minimize the trauma, loss and grief being separated from attachment figures brings, it is our responsibility to acknowledge the complexity and ambiguous loss that comes with transitions for children who have already experienced so much loss and change. In this interactive webinar, clinicians will learn ways to help children and families prepare for and process endings and beginnings. Clinicians will learn techniques for talking with children about their difficult and traumatic histories in a developmentally appropriate way to help them process the multiple losses they have experienced. Clinicians will also learn techniques to prepare children and families for transitions and necessary good byes; this may include leaving a foster home or group home, a final visit with a birth family, placement with a kinship caregiver, reunification with a birth parent, an adoption disruption or moving to an adoptive home. Experiential activities will be integrated into the workshop to expand the clinician’s toolkit in working with families as they prepare children for necessary transitions and goodbyes. [Elective for Adoption Certificate Program]


Fee: $60.00
Continuing Ed. Hours (CEH): 3.0 Clinical

Instructor: Rebecca Gallese, LCSW
Date: Friday, May 16, 2025
Time: 9:30 am - 12:30 pm ET
Location: Live Interactive Online Webinar


Webinar Objectives

At the conclusion of this webinar, participants will be able to:

  • Define the role of the adoption professional in relation to work with adoptive families
  • Describe the impact of secrecy on child and family relationships
  • List techniques for talking with children about their history and transitions in a developmentally appropriate way
  • Identify the importance of developing the child's personal narrative or Life Story to help make sense of their past
  • Describe techniques to effectively prepare children and support families through transitions and adoption

    Webinar Outline

    9:30 am Welcome/Introduction

  • Workshop objectives
  • Opening icebreaker

    9:40 am Building the professional relationship and explaining adoption work

    9:55 am Telling the truth to adopted children and the impact secrecy has on family relationships, reasons for not telling and techniques to help professionals and parents tell the truth

    10:15 am Techniques for talking with children about their history, removal, placement and adoption in a developmentally appropriate way

    11:00 am Icebreaker, Building the child's story to help them make sense of their past, tools to help children talk about their past, questions the child needs answered, video and discussion

    11:15 am Techniques to prepare and support children and families through transitions, goodbyes and changes, the essential benefits of saying goodbye and the emotional and transitional tasks necessary to validate and support the child's grieving process, case examples and video

    12:10 pm Ways to minimize vicarious trauma and the impact this has on the professional

    12:15 pm Conclusion/Q&A

    Target Audience

    Social Workers and Allied Health Professionals

    Content Level

    Beginner - Advanced

    Webinar Completion Requirements

    To earn CE credit, social workers must log in at the scheduled time, attend the entire course and complete an online course evaluation. Certificates of completion will be emailed within 10 business days of course completion.

    System Requirements

    • Operating Systems: Windows XP or higher, MacOS 9 or higher, Android 4.0 or higher
    • Internet Browser: Internet Explorer 9.0 or higher, Google Chrome, Firefox 10.0 or higher
    • Broadband Internet connection: Cable, High-speed DSL & any other medium that is internet accessible.

    About the Instructor

    Rebecca Gallese, LCSW, is a licensed clinical social worker with over twenty years� experience working in the field of foster care and adoption. With a MSW from Rutgers School of Social Work her experience includes: providing in home family therapy to foster, adoptive and kinship families, outpatient treatment to foster and adoptive families, supervising in home adoption therapists, providing Tuning in to Teens parenting groups for kinship and adoptive parents, instructing foster, kinship and adoptive parent trainings, curriculum development and has been an instructor for the CE program at Rutgers since 2007.

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