LGBTQ+

University of Michigan Center for Sexuality & Health Disparities: “All About Gender”

From Henry Ford, this guide can apply to and most benefit parents who have transgender, questioning, gender expansive, gender nonconforming, or non-binary kids. The guide explains terms, answers common questions, addresses transitioning, and gives additional resources

Literature

The Primal Wound

This book is a “seminal work which revolutionizes the way we think about adoption. It describes and clarifies the effects of separating babies from their birth mothers as a primal loss which affects the relationships of the adopted person throughout life”. This book also discusses pre-and perinatal psychology, attachment, bonding, and loss and gives adoptees, whose pain has long been unacknowledged or misunderstood, validation for their feelings, as well as explanations for their behavior. Additionally, it lists “the coping mechanisms which adoptees use to be able to attach and live in a family to whom they are not related and with whom they have no genetic cues”. The hope is that this book will “contribute to the healing of all members of the adoption triad and will bring understanding and encouragement to anyone who has ever felt abandoned”.

Literature

Attaching in Adoption: Practical Tools for Today’s Parents

This is a comprehensive guide for prospective and current adoptive parents on ways to understand and care for the adopted child and promote healthy attachment. It provides “practical parenting strategies designed to enhance children’s happiness and emotional health” and explains “what attachment is, how grief and trauma can affect children’s emotional development, and how to improve attachment, respect, cooperation and trust”. The listed parenting techniques are “matched to children’s emotional needs and stages, and checklists are included to help parents assess how their child is doing at each developmental stage”. This book covers a wide range of issues including international adoption, Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, and learning disabilities. It is also geared as an important resource for adopted professionals.

Medical Needs

Family Resource Center on Disabilities

The Family Resource Center is dedicated to “Providing Parents of Children with Disabilities with Information, Training, and Assistance.” Their resource page contains 20 categories on varying subjects for parents of children with disabilities and is available in Spanish.

Medical Needs

Child Welfare Information Gateway: “Parenting Your Child With Developmental Delays and Disabilities”

A basic overview on identifying a disability in children, the first steps parents can take to address their child’s needs, and strategies for parenting.

Medical Needs

Wrightslaw Yellow Pages for Kids with Disabilities

Yellow Pages for Kids is a directory for resources for kids with disabilities across the United States. It lists consultants, psychologists, tutors, therapists, coaches, and other professionals who serve children with disabilities. Their search tool allows the user to narrow by state, and control+f for a nearby zip code.

Medical Needs

The Special Needs Parent Handbook – 2nd Edition

The book provides practical and useful advice for parents of children with special needs or other disabilities. It includes sections on: Hiring babysitters and free respite help, Finding the best and kindest doctors, Keeping the family together, taking care of your health and more.

Medical Needs

Child Welfare Information Gateway: “Adoption and Guardianship Assistance by State”

This article answers the questions “Does your State provide additional finances or services for medical or therapeutic needs not covered under your State medical plan to children receiving adoption assistance?” It proceeds with a state by state breakdown of whether or not each state does.

Medical Needs

NCFA: “A Guide to Adoption Subsidies and Assistance for Adoptive Parents”

This article discusses subsidies that provide additional support for adoptees and their families. It explains what they are, who provides the, who is eligible, the process, and tips for the process.

Medical Needs

U.S. Department of Labor: “Protections for Newborns, Adopted Children, and New Parents…The Newborns’ and Mothers’ Health Protection Act of 1996”

An article by the US Department of Labor on protections for newborns, adopted children, and new parents in the context of a health protection act passed in 1996. It explains how the healthcare operates in relation to adoption and the different technicalities involved in securing health surance when adopting.

Resources