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Training to be an adoption support counsellor
The Albany Centre, St Albans, in association with Barnardo’s, is designing and producing a national, specialist post-qualifying training programme for counsellors and psychotherapists to be appropriately trained and registered with an adoption support agency; this follows a change in the law in December 2010.
Amendments to the Adoption and Children Act of 2002 were designed to ensure that UK individuals affected by adoption are provided with services and support from practitioners who are appropriately qualified and experienced.
The introduction of this legislation now means that any counsellor and psychotherapist working with a client for whom any aspect of adoption is the main focus must be registered with Ofsted (or RQIA in Northern Ireland) and subject to regular inspections.
Syllabus
- The history of adoption including social, religious, political and legal facets of adoption
- A detailed focus on the last 50 years of legal and social change and the rights of adopters, adoptees and birth families
- The experience of birth parents and the changing reasons why children are placed for adoption
- The adopter’s experience (reasons for adopting, the assessment process, matching, introductions, moving in and moving on)
- The adopted child’s experience and needs with special emphasis on traumatic attachment issues
- The adult adoptee’s experience including their rights and the process of tracing the birth family and uncovering their life story
- Working therapeutically with adoptive families using attachment building interventions such as life story work, telling, managing conflict and crisis in the family, understanding the adopted child’s experience and needs and looking at adoptive parents’ and siblings’ needs (birth and adopted). Developing skills in the family of “co-regulation of emotions”
Teaching methods
- Guest speakers throughout (an adopter, an adult adoptee, a birth parent, experienced professionals)
- Skills practice sessions focusing on developing ways of working with adoptive families and adoptees of various ages and stages
- Presentations on theories and knowledge around adoption
- E-learning platform with additional resources
The parties will work together with the aim that this course can be accredited by Barnardo’s internal training body, The BU.
The full five module course will lead to the Barnardo’s Post-Graduate Diploma in Adoption Therapy.