In June of 1998, MARE presented a Training and Orientation Session for prospective adoptive parents in Northern Michigan. 48 persons attended that first session, with many families having to be turned away due to lack of space. Nearly two years later, demand for the training remains high with most sessions being filled to capacity several months in advance, and waiting lists being created for future trainings.

The popularity and success of these training sessions has been somewhat surprising, to say the least. It is certainly encouraging to see so many families and individuals interested in adopting older children; however, we at MARE are concerned about the many families we have to turn away on a regular basis.

MARE began offering these trainings as a means of assisting and/or supplementing (not replacing) the training and orientation opportunities adoption agencies were already providing on their own. We are hearing from families that some adoption agencies have gone so far as to require their prospective adoptive families to attend a MARE-sponsored Orientation and Training session before they can continue in the adoption process. While it is an agency’s prerogative to set their own guidelines and expectations, we hope that agencies will still provide their own training opportunities, and not make the MARE sessions a requirement.

We firmly believe in the value of the training curriculum; however, given our staffing resources and other program responsibilities, MARE can not possibly meet the demand for training that we are experiencing. And we hate the thought of losing potential adoptive families due to a lack of training opportunities.

We will continue to offer these trainings every other month for the foreseeable future, however, we are depending on adoption agencies continuing to offer their own training and orientation sessions to help meet the needs of appropriate interested families.

It should be noted that MARE has trained (or sponsored the training of) several trainers throughout Michigan who are qualified to present the PATH curriculum. We appreciate their assistance in presenting these trainings and encourage them to continue offering their training services in the future.

We also want to express our thanks to the Family Independence Agency, various adoption agencies throughout Michigan, and the hundreds of families who have attended these trainings. It is through the combined efforts of all that we work to achieve our main objective: building a foundation for success so that children are placed with loving families who can meet their needs appropriately.

Pre-Adoption Orientation & Training Sessions
Facts and FAQ’s

1. What is it? The pre-adoption Orientation & Training Session is a broad overview of the issues related to adopting older children from foster care. It is introductory in nature and therefore is not intended for experienced foster and/or adoptive families. It is also not intended for persons interested in adopting infants or very young children.
2. What subjects does the training cover? A wide range of issues including: how and why children come in to foster care, the different kinds of abuse and/or neglect that children in the system have experienced, attachment issues, the survival behaviors developed by children in the system, helping families to assess their own strengths and the resources they will need to raise these children, . . . and more. The training is not intended to be a “parenting skills” class.
3. What is the training curriculum? We use the PATH (Parents As Tender Healers) curriculum developed by the National Resource Center at Spaulding for Children in Southfield, MI. The curriculum combines verbal presentation and group discussion, and is enhanced further by video segments featuring real families and adoption professionals. The PATH curriculum was designed to include 24 hours of training, spread out over several weeks. MARE has condensed the material to create an intensive 12-hour training over two days (Friday night and all day Saturday).
4. What does it cost? There is no charge for the training.
5. What is included? In addition to the 12 hours of training, participants receive a training manual with all materials to take home. Assorted other educational and/or promotional items are also included. Refreshments are provided throughout the training including lunch on Saturday. Overnight accommodations are also included at no charge (for Friday night only) for those who need them.
6. What are the hours of the training? The training runs from 7:00 - 10:00pm Friday, and 8:00am - 4:30pm Saturday.
7. How many people attend the training? It depends on the training site, but capacity is usually limited to 30 people per session. Training sessions are often filled a month (or more) in advance.

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The Effects of Fetal Alcohol Exposure

by Amanda Lynet

As prospective adoptive families prepare for the placement of a long awaited child, they are oriented to the best of adoption agencies’ abilities on “what to expect” of a “special needs child”. Agencies send families to valuable training, seminars, and orientations. They are interviewed by social workers, and asked to provide personal documents about birth, health, and finances. The families ultimately wait for that approval for placement. When finally matched with a child, families are prepared for the possible problems that may arise, given the availability of background information.

The unfortunate truth is that, even when agencies have a substantial amount of background information on a child’s history, there are many things that cannot be predicted. The effects of drug and alcohol exposure are one of the many unpredictables. Given the rising number of children that are in the system due to parental involvement with drugs and alcohol, adoption professionals continually see numerous children flood the system with pre-natal exposure to alcohol and drugs. The scary reality is that many of these children do not show physical effects of exposure at birth, but the long-term emotional and behavioral problems can be devastating, not only to the family, but also the child’s future. Families that are told their adopted child has been prenatally exposed to alcohol may not fully understand the long-term affects of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) or Fetal Alcohol Effects (FAE).

In the late 1980’s, Michael Dorris’s book, “The Broken Cord” hit the shelves of bookstores nationwide. The book is a personal account of an adoptive family’s life journey while they learned to cope with FAS and provide life-long care to their adopted son. The book came at a time when our government began public awareness campaigns to address the true concerns of women drinking during pregnancy. In 1981, the Surgeon General first advised that women should not drink alcoholic beverages during pregnancy because of the risk of birth defects and in 1989 Public Law 100-690 was implemented requiring that warning labels be on all alcoholic beverages sold in the United States. The book ultimately represents the true exhausting and debilitating effects of FAS. The most unfortunate fact is that FAS/FAE is the one birth defect that is 100% preventable.

For those many adoptive families, knowing that FAS is preventable is not as useful as knowing where to go if your child has Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Having useful information on characteristics and symptoms may help some family’s pinpoint a long- unanswered problem. In understanding that adoption agencies do their best to inform families of a child’s history, there are the families that know their child was prenatally exposed to alcohol, but for others it is a guessing game. Being able to recognize certain characteristics and features may help families identify FAS/FAE and ultimately seek the necessary interventions. Unfortunately, it is often difficult to identify children who have FAS because the symptoms are similar to other disorders. The only way to find out for certain if a child has FAS is to measure the facial features when the person is a young child, test their urine immediately after birth, or get an accurate account of the birth mother’s drinking habits while she was pregnant.

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is defined by the Center for Disease Control as a birth defect caused by a woman drinking heavily during pregnancy. Growth retardation, abnormal facial features, and central nervous system problems characterize FAS. Children with FAS can have serious lifelong disabilities, including mental retardation, learning disabilities, and serious behavioral problems. Fetal Alcohol Effects is a less severe set of the same symptoms.

Children born with FAS are often abnormally small, and usually do not catch up as they get older. They may have small heads, flat nasal bridges, thinned upper lip and flat cheeks. A child born with FAS may exhibit the following behaviors; poor coordination, hyperactive behavior, learning disabilities, developmental disabilities (including speech and language delays), low IQ, and/or mental retardation. Many children with FAS/FAE have been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Conduct Disorder, and Oppositional Defiant Disorder.

Parenting a child with FAS/FAE and not knowing it can be a path that is never-ending, filled with unanswered questions and frustration. The key for families attempting to parent a child with FAS/FAE is having early intervention. Having appropriate therapeutic and educational services in place will help in raising a child with FAS.

According to the March of Dimes each year more than 50,000 babies are born with some degree of alcohol-related damages, and of these babies, 2,000-12,000 are born with FAS, a combination of physical and mental birth defects. This begs the question of how many adopted parents are parenting a child whose learning, behavioral, or social problems are a direct cause of the effects of FAS/FAE, but this has never been identified?

The National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (Dr. Patricia Tanner-Halverson) offers the following characteristics of FAS/FAE and strategies for parents and caregivers of FAS and FAE children:

FAS children may:

• have difficulty structuring work time.
• have impaired rates of learning.
• have poor memory.
• have trouble generalizing behaviors and information.
• may act impulsively
• may exhibit reduced attention span.
• be easily distracted.
• display fearlessness and unresponsiveness to verbal cautions.
• demonstrate poor social judgement.
• not be able to handle money age appropriately.
• have difficulty internalizing modeled behaviors
• have differences in sensory awareness (hypo or hyper)
• have language production that is higher than comprehension.

Discipline:

• Set limits and follow them consistently.
• Change rewards of ten to keep interest in reward.
• Review and repeat consequences of behaviors. Ask the child to tell you consequences.
• Do not debate or argue over rules already established. "Just do it".
• Notice and comment when your child is doing well or behaving appropriately.
• Avoid threats.
• Redirect behavior.
• Intervene before behavior escalates.
• Avoid situations where child will be over stimulated.
• Have child repeat back their understanding of directions.
• Have pre-established consequences for misbehavior.
• Protect them from being exploited. They are naïve.

Some Effective Strategies:

• Fostering independence in self help or play.
• Give child choices and encourage decision-making.
• Focus on teaching daily living skills.
• Have child get ready for next school day prior to going to bed.
• Establish routines so child can predict coming events.
• Give child lots of advance warning that activity will soon change to another one.
• Be concrete when teaching a new concept. Show them.
• For unpredictable behavior at bedtime/mealtime, establish a firm routine.
• Break down their work down into small pieces so they do not feel overwhelmed.

Early diagnosis can bring a more appropriate early intervention action, which can reduce some of the adverse effects this syndrome can bring into adolescence and adulthood. The long term physical and mental implications brought on by the alcohol indicates that Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is " not a childhood disorder, but a long term progression into adulthood" (Steven Schandler-Journal of Consulting Psychology). Early intervention is the key, but intervention is never to late. If you suspect that your child my have FAS/FAE contact your doctor to begin assessment that way you and your family can begin to put in place the appropriate type of education and therapeutic tools.

For more information on FAS/FAE contact the National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome at www.nofas.org or you can write to the organization at 1819 H. Street NW, Suite 750 Washington, DC 2006.