Our Treatment Approach
Adoption is a family journey and in order to provide the best treatment for
children, therapists work with parents to help them develop a specific set
of therapeutic parenting skills that will assist them in identifying what
triggers their children’s behaviors, and learn how to effectively manage
them. Parents are an essential component of the therapy process and, with
the guidance and support of their therapist, are encouraged to work with
their children in session and at home to foster improved attachment, develop
improved social skills, manage challenging behavior and process unresolved
trauma and loss.
Top researchers and clinicians in this field have shown how the impact of
trauma impacts brain functioning and attachment in relationships. Our
therapists utilize treatment approaches that are grounded in the latest
research.
Training for Professionals: Lilliput offers an excellent
Training for
Adoption Competency (TAC) for Mental Health Professionals.
Post Adoption Therapy Services
At Lilliput we have over 30 years of experience working with foster and
adoptive families. Adoptive families experience both tremendous joy and
unique challenges that are not always understood by the traditional mental
health professional. Children who have experienced separation from
significant attachment figures may exhibit a variety of behaviors that can
impact the parent-child relationship. Our post adoption services were
created to address the special needs of adopted children and their families.
Children coming from foster or institutionalized care have experienced
varying levels of separation, abuse and/or neglect, resulting in unresolved
grief and loss, lack of trust and intense fear. In order to cope with this
unresolved trauma and loss, children may exhibit behaviors that parents,
teachers and other caring adults in their lives may find overwhelming.
Our Post Adoption Therapy Services are offered to all adoptive families in
the Greater Sacramento area.
Parenting Seminars and Support Groups
Throughout the year, Lilliput provides various support groups, parenting
seminars and classes for parents, children and adolescents. All of these
services are designed to support families at each stage of the adoption
process.
Below are just a few of the topics that are offered:
- Nurturing Ourselves, Nurturing Our Children
- Keep the Love Light Burning… A Seminar for Couples
- Parenting to Meet the Unique Needs of Your Child
- WISE-UP! Helping Children Respond to Questions About Adoption
- It Takes a Village...Supporting Transracial Families
Birth Family and Identity Concerns
Experts in the adoption field agree that there are many benefits to helping
adopted children and adolescents stay connected to birth family. Although it
is not always possible to stay physically connected to birth family, helping
children explore their birth and foster family history, teaching them about
their culture and ethnic background and being able to answer their
questions, goes far in helping them to form a healthy identity and build a
trusting parent-child relationship. For some adoptive parents, thinking
about birth family can trigger a roller coaster of emotions. We are here to
assist you in creating safe ways to support your family at all levels of the
birth family connection continuum.
This may include:
- Helping Children to Understand Their Birth and Foster Family History.
- Preparing for or Participation in Birth Family visits
- Exploring Cultural or Sexual Identity
- Creating Life Books
- Beginning the Searching Process
Please see our calendar for seminars dates and locations.
Fees
All Post Adoption therapy sessions are paid on a fee-for-service basis. We
also accept Victim Witness Funding and will furnish any necessary receipts
that you request for your health insurance plans.
Fees for our seminars and support groups may be paid for separately or as a
package.
Newsletter
To view any of our Clinical
Services Newsletters, click here.
Our Clinical Team
All therapy services are provided by experienced therapists who specialize
in working with adopted children and their families.
Edythe Swidler, LMFT
Edythe (Edye) Swidler joined Lilliput as the Clinical Program Director in
2008. She brings with her over 25 years experience working with children and
families in both the non-profit and private practice sector. She has worked
as a program manager, clinical director and therapist, developing and
facilitating numerous parent and professional trainings and support groups.
Edye is also an adoptive parent and thus understands both the joys and
challenges of parenting children coming from foster care.
As Lilliput’s Clinical Program Director, Edye has assisted in the
development of several programs created to assist children and families
transitioning from foster care to permanency. Edye oversees the Clinical
Services program ensuring that all therapists, interns and trainees, provide
best practice. She continue to stay abreast of cutting edge research and
evidenced based practices that support attachment, assist children in
overcoming trauma, and contribute to the overall well-being of the children
and families that we serve.
Shelley Balla-Hawkins, MFT intern
Shelley Balla-Hawkins is a registered Marriage and Family Therapist Intern
who graduated in 1997 with a Masters degree in Psychology, Marriage and
Family Therapy from Antioch University, Seattle before working as a child
and family therapist in the state of Washington. Shelley is presently
working toward her Marriage and Family Therapy license in the State of
California. Shelley brings over 25 years experience working in the field of
counseling and social work to Lilliput’s Post Adoption Therapy Programs.
Shelley has devoted her professional life to supporting families on their
path of growth and healing and in maximizing their potential. Shelley brings
warmth, safety, respect, compassion, skills, and creativity to her
interactive and engaged approach. Shelley’s therapeutic orientation is
attachment focused and also draws from a variety of well established
modalities and creative practices to find the best fit for an individual,
couple, or family’s unique therapeutic process. Examples include:
emotionally focused; Imago; family systems, cognitive-behavioral; narrative;
solution-focused; play therapy; art therapy; and therapy in writing.
Shelley has created and facilitated several support groups and parent
training programs that are offered throughout the year in our Granite Bay
and Sacramento offices.
Josh Singer, LMFT
Josh Singer is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Certified
Clinical Hypnotherapist. He has extensive experience in providing
therapeutic services to children and families both in agency settings as
well as private practice. Josh sees himself as a guide who helps facilitate
the relationships between parents and their children. As facilitator and
therapist, Josh engages families in conversations that are relevant and
meaningful to them, structures sessions in a way that promotes a safe and
nurturing environment for all family members and challenges families to
learn new skills that will allow them to move forward on a unified and
strengthened path.
At Lilliput, Josh provides therapeutic services to adoptive and kinship
families, aiding them in establishing family unity, bonding, identity
formation, managing grief and loss, self regulation and other issues that
are important and meaningful to families.
For more information or to set up an intake appointment, contact our
Clinical Program Director at 916-923-5444 or e-mail us at
clinicalservices@lilliput.org
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