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  • Navigating Adoption
    I’m Pregnant

    I’m Pregnant

    If you're facing an unintended pregnancy or have recently given birth, we're here for you with free and confidential all-options counseling, resources, and support. Call our pregnancy counselors 24/7 at 800-439-0233.

    I Want to Adopt

    I Want to Adopt

    Browse our network of adoption services including infant and foster care adoption, home studies, and post-adoption support.

    I Need Post-Adoption Support

    I Need Post-Adoption Support

    Explore our network of services including specialized counseling and support groups that help to stabilize and improve behavioral health symptoms.

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Looking for Adoptions Together or FamilyWorks Together? New name, same us. Here’s why!

Counseling Services

Paths for Families provides counseling for families formed through adoption and guardianship as well as for families involved in child welfare or who are caring for kin. We work with individuals and families who came together through domestic, international or foster care adoption. We welcome birth parents, blended families, and those who achieved pregnancy through reproductive technologies.

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Maryland Post Adoption Counseling Program

Maryland Post Adoption Counseling Program

Adoption is a lifelong journey and support from our team at Paths for Families doesn’t end after finalization. Building a strong support network of people and resources enables you and your family to have the necessary support when making a huge life transition. In partnership with the Social Services Administration, we offer free post-adoption counseling for qualified families in Maryland.

Counseling Fees

Counseling Fees

Paths for Families offers specialized counseling utilizing best practice gained from 30 years of service and evidence-based models. Our expertise in youth & family psychology results in long-term positive outcomes for lifelong, healthy attachments and stabilization of mental health symptoms. Click here for information about our counseling fees.

Support Groups

Support Groups

We offer online support groups for children, adolescents and families on a variety of issues. These groups aim to allow the participant to receive support from their peers and facilitators with lived experience as well as education from licensed, trained therapists to support their growth and healing. The groups are offered weekly and monthly.

 

Our attachment-focused, trauma-responsive, adoption/permanency-competent therapy assists families with a variety of challenges to support the whole family. These challenges may include:

  • Parenting, Partner/Marital, Sibling, Identity, Behavioral Challenges
  • Post-Adoption and PostpartumDepression
  • Grief and Loss
  • Simple and Complex Trauma
  • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • Child Abuse and Neglect
  • Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) or Neurodevelopmental Differences (Due to Prenatal Injury)
  • Emotional and Behavioral Regulation
  • Attachment Disorders
  • General Mental Health Concerns
  • Birthparent Issues
  • Search and Reunion

Parent Coaching and Post-Adoption Counseling

Another post-adoption counseling option available through Paths for Families is access to parent coaching, where staff can provide you with a wealth of information, guidance, support, and advice in person or over the phone. Coaching can help parents cope with common stressors that can arise, including:

  • Learning how to set effective limits with your child
  • Discovering how to practice teamwork with your partner
  • Learning how to best manage parenting as a single parent
  • Understanding your child’s behavior (and the message he or she is sending)
  • Effectively managing stress

 


Our approaches include:

Attachment Focused Therapy

Attachment focused therapy builds a secure emotional attachment between the child and their parents that can allow the child and family to heal and move towards healthy family functioning. Some children who were adopted at birth and had prenatal trauma, medical trauma, as well as those who had multiple caregivers after birth may have not developed a secure or organized attachment style. Children raised by the parents they were born to and experienced medical trauma, post-partum depression or trauma within the family system are challenged in their attachment style. Our work focuses on building parent child connection through attunement with their child, increasing sensitivity, developing a reflective function, and teaching attachment-facilitating parent approaches. Attachment focused therapy is relational and builds connection.

Adoption and Permanency Competent Therapy

Adoption-competent therapists understand that the losses associated with adoption may cause a spectrum of challenges for a child. Embracing a child’s history from the time of pregnancy (prenatal exposures) to post birth separation and understanding the impact of abuse or neglect experienced before the child was adopted is critical to a holistic approach to healing. We believe that children thrive within the context of healthy family relationships and with parents who have the skills to support children whose behavior may be hard to understand. We have a working understanding of loss, attachment, trauma, and brain development, as well as knowledge of issues associated with adoption. We understand the critical importance of historical information for a child to embrace all parts of him or herself. We embrace whatever relationship the adoptee and family have with the birth family and provide support to keep that relationship healthy.

Trauma Focused-Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT)

Trauma Focused-Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is an evidence-based therapeutic model for children and adolescents impacted by trauma and their parents/caregivers. Trauma sensitive approaches to regulating emotions, thoughts, and relationships as well as processing trauma and enhancing trust and safety are core elements of this approach. All members of the clinical team are TF-CBT trained.

Strength Based Therapy

Strength-based therapy is a type of positive psychotherapy and counseling that focuses more on your internal strengths and resourcefulness, and less on weaknesses, failures, and shortcomings. This focus sets up a positive mindset that helps you build on you best qualities, find your strengths, improve resilience and change worldview to one that is more positive. A positive attitude, in turn, can help your expectations of yourself and others become more reasonable.

Trust Based Relational Intervention (TBRI)

Trust Based Relational Intervention is an attachment based, trauma informed approach developed by Dr. Karyn Purvis. Connection is at the core of this intervention and offers practical tips for anyone working with children.

Read More About TBRI

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing is an evidence-based approach to working with children and adults who have experienced trauma, attachment injuries, and challenges with emotional regulation. EMDR helps the brain digest complicated things to help with recovery.