Therapist with foster and adoptive families, child welfare policy person, foster/adoptive parent. I also love nature, reading, travel and making things
I once read a story* about American police officers visiting Scotland to learn how they police so effectively without guns; Scottish officers focus on de-escalating situations through talk. It made me think about how parents with verbally or…
Bessel Van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score is the most comprehensive resource on trauma to date. He focuses on all types of trauma inflicted at many ages, so I thought I would boil down some of the essential points that apply to children who are fostered or…
At about 6 AM early in December, my mother told me that she wanted to bring my step-father home from the hospital for his last months. We signed up for hospice services from the intensive care unit and great things unfolded from there. What a contrast to a…
How do children who have experienced traumatic childhoods heal and go on to lead productive and happy lives? I asked one of my older children (soon to be 23), Marie, “how did you turn out so great?!” :) Here is what she had to say:
I was raised primarily by my mother and we spent most of our holidays and vacations with her family. It wasn’t until I was in my forties that I connected with relatives on my father’s side at a funeral and began a real relationship with them.