For Professionals

Collaborating to promote best practice in child welfare, family services, and adoption.

We believe in the importance of working together with other professionals who serve children and families; by doing so we strengthen the services that families receive and promote shared knowledge in current best practices. We have offices in Manhattan, Long Island, and New Jersey but are also happy to come on-site to your organization or virtually to offer trainings, workshops, and more.

FOR CHILD WELFARE & SOCIAL SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS

Let us collaborate with your organization to promote clinical best practice for families and permanency for children:

Trainings For Professionals

We offer virtual or on-site trainings to professionals. Our trainings are crafted through an adoption competent and trauma- informed lens. We can provide training on one particular topic or combine topics for multi-day curriculums based on your agency’s needs. Our current library of trainings include:

1. Trauma and its Impact on Child Development

2. Grief and Loss for Children

3. Attachment and Bonding

4. Openness in Relationships

5. Typical Childhood and Adolescent Development

6. Permanency Planning in the Context of the Child Welfare System

7. Tools to Help Therapists Working in Foster Care or Adoption

8. Supporting Those Considering Adoption as their Path to Parenthood

If you are planning your own training or workshop but need a space where you can facilitate the event, let us host your event!

Talk to us about applying for CEUs for our trainings.

Workshops for Children/Youth

We are also available to provide direct services to children through workshops such as:

Mask Making Workshop: Children and youth wear many identities which can be confusing to them. Mask making focuses on the “mask” that they show the world and the inner “mask” that shows how they feel inside.
Lifebook Workshop: Knowing one’s story is a powerful thing and something many of us take for granted. This workshop uses words and pictures to empower children/youth to tell their own story. This exercise helps children understand the journey of their lives and how they ended up being in the family they are in.

We can also develop workshops for the children, birth parents, foster parents or adoptive parents that your agency serves.

Family Coaching for Children and Teens and Their Parents/Caregivers Returning to Parents or Joining a New Family

Finding permanency involves adjustments and understanding of the child’s emotional needs. This type of coaching promotes attachment and helps a child recover from their trauma background. We will give parents tools to aid in this process. The themes we cover are:

Openness with Birth Families
Adoption is a Lifelong Decision
The Identity of Your Child and Your Family
Grief and loss and How it Affects Behavior
Trauma and How it Affects Development

FOR SCHOOLS

We offer educational resources, trainings, and private consultations for educators, counselors, and school administrators to build adoption competency and support adopted students. Facilitated by a licensed social worker and an adoptee advocate, these sessions are available virtually or in person, and equip school staff with the tools to create environments where adopted children feel safe and understood.

Our training topics include but are not limited to:

Adoption in Schools: Creating a Supportive Environment
Trauma-Informed Approaches in School Settings
Language that Affirms Diverse Family Structures

For attorneys

We respect the tremendous and valuable role that attorneys play in adoption – from representing birth parents’ rights, to supporting pre-adoptive families in match and placement, to representing adoptive families at finalization. We provide the following services to complement your work with your clients:

Home Study – We offer home study for families who are working with an attorney for placement. Our home studies include pre-adoption training and we remain available to families through post-placement and beyond adoption through our lifelong post-adoption services. We can transmit needed documentation to court, including clearances, for pre-certification or finalization proceedings.
Options counseling – if you are representing an expectant parent who needs options counseling, our social work team provides unbiased options counseling to explore options including parenting, adoption, kinship care, foster care and abortion.
Other Services – Your families are invited to our pre-adoption trainings and post-adoption events such as lifebooks, mentorship, counseling and more!

For adoption agencies

We value the opportunity to collaborate with other adoption agencies to support families and to further best practices in adoption. There are numerous ways we can work together, including:

Home Study: We offer home study for families in New York and New Jersey who are adopting through another agency’s placement program. We will coordinate with your agency to ensure that our home study not only meets state and Hague standards, but also any standards of your agency or the country the family is adopting from. We integrate trainings through our home study process and offer in-person trainings on topics including trauma, grief, loss, openness, transracial parenting, behavior management, and medical issues in international adoption as presented by a medical expert.
Placement Programs: We offer adoption programs for families of all compositions. We have domestic and international programs available for applicants of all ages, for single applicants, for cohabitating unmarried couples, and for LGBTQ+ applicants. We rely on reputable out-of-state agencies like yours to conduct the home studies for our out-of-state families who are participating in our placement programs.
Pre-Adoption Training for Families: Throughout the year we offer trainings to pre-adoptive families pursuing international adoption; we are happy to extend these trainings to your families even if they are not working with Spence-Chapin for home study or placement.
Post-Adoption Services: Your families are invited to our post-adoption events such as our monthly play days, lifebook workshops, mentorship, counseling and more!
Staff trainings: As licensed agencies, our staff all need ongoing adoption practice training. We can come on-site and offer training to your staff on topics such as trauma, grief, loss, openness, transracial parenting, behavior management and older child adoption.
Have us host your training: If you are planning your own training or workshop but need a space where you can facilitate the event, let us host your event!

FOR HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS

Free In-Service Presentations for your Organization Staff:

We’ve provided in-service presentations for hundreds of organizations on how to support expectant and biological parents considering and/or making an adoption plan for their baby. Trainings are free and can be in-person or virtual, depending on your staff’s needs.

In these presentations, staff will learn:

How to describe options to clients/patients who are unsure about parenting
Best practices in adoption
Domestic and Special Needs Adoption Program at Spence-Chapin
New York and New Jersey adoption laws/birth parent rights

Free Continuing Education Programs for Licensed Social Workers:

In Partnership with Rutgers School of Social Work, we provide cutting-edge continuing education programs on various topics in child welfare throughout the year.

To register or learn more please visit: Resources & Support for Unplanned Pregnancy (spence-chapin.org)

All our events are free to attend.

Request free print brochures on our services for expectant/biological parents by emailing [email protected]

Available in English, Spanish, Chinese, Haitian-Creole, Bengali and Arabic

For Options Counseling and Referrals for expectant/biological parents, please call our helpline 24/7.

All information provided is free, confidential and unbiased.

Call: 800-321-LOVE (5683)

Text: 646-306-2586
Email: [email protected]