This workshop is for anyone wanting to know more about how to support open relationships with your child’s biological family and/or extended community. The information they possess and the connections they experience with biological family, community, and culture play an important role in shaping a child’s identity.

Adoptive, foster, kinship and permanency parents can support healthy identify formation through they way they tell their child’s story as well as how they identify and speak about the important people and places and how much importance they place on these relationships.

Participants will leave with a better understanding of how to make tough decisions about initiating and sustaining relationships with their child’s family members, how to plan positive relational experiences, how to set healthy boundaries and respond effectively to the big feelings that can surface before, during and after these points of connections. The facilitator will specifically address some of the unique challenges of openness within international adoptions. Parents will also be encouraged to reflect on their own thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about openness.