Adoption & Post-Adoption Resources
- Texas Christian University's Institute of Child Development strives to help children suffering from the effects of early trauma, abuse and/or neglect. They conduct research to deepen understanding of the complex needs of these children and how to help them overcome social, behavioral, and emotional challenges. Through various outreach initiatives, they train professionals in Trust-Based Relational Intervention®, a research-based, holistic model developed by Dr. Karyn Purvis and Dr. David Cross. They are not a service provider and do not provide clinical services of any kind.
- The Center for Adoption Support and Education (C.A.S.E.), based in Maryland, provides specialized clinical services; parent and professional training and education; adoption advocacy at the community, national, and international levels; participating in groundbreaking adoption research; fundraising; and the development and production of print and electronic resources to aid adopted children, families, and the professionals who support them.
- Michelle Rigg with Parenting Playfully is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with a Master’s degree in social work. She is a Registered Play Therapist and trained as a TBRI© practitioner and in Theraplay©. Michelle has over 25 years of direct practice and administrative experience working with birth families, foster/adoptive families, and children in domestic and international adoption. She is in private practice as a child and family therapist in Dallas, Texas. With a special interest in interpersonal neurobiology, she works with families parenting children from birth to 12 years of age, using trauma-informed, attachment-focused, play-based interventions.
- Kara Higgins with Wholehearted Space adopted two boys from Rwanda through America World. In addition, she is a foster mom and has adopted through the foster care system. She found TBRI while working through one of her sons’ post-adoption challenges, and now she equips others through training and coaching. Read her story in our blog!
- Empowered to Connect is an organization based on the work of Karyn Purvis which provides training for families as well as an online library of articles, audio and video presentations covering a wide variety of topics for adoptive and foster parents as well as ministry leaders and professionals.
- HALO Project (Healing, Attachment, Loving, Outreach) is a 10-week intensive outpatient intervention designed to meet the unique and diverse needs of children in foster care, children that have been adopted or children that exhibit difficulty in the area of attachment. HALO Project relies heavily on the Trust-Based Relational Intervention model created by Dr. Karyn Purvis and Dr. David Cross at the TCU Institute of Child Development.
- Adoption Learning Partners* - Online training courses to prepare families for adoption, adoptive parenting courses, and training for professionals on adoption.
* Vendor Disclosure Statement
As part of our commitment to transparency and ethical practices, we want to inform you about our relationship with Adoption Learning Partners, an external vendor to whom we may refer clients for training services. We participate in a rewards program with Adoption Learning Partners, where our agency earns points whenever a client we refer completes a training course with them. These points can be redeemed by America World for discounts towards future training courses for our staff. Please note that this rewards program does not influence the recommendations we make regarding training services, and our primary goal is always to ensure you receive the best possible training based on your needs.