Creating Ceremonies: Innovative Ways to Meet Adoption Challenges

All families, no matter how they are brought together, struggle against enormous odds to thrive. However, for adoptive families, where the history is not a shared one, the rites and traditions commonly relied upon to negotiate transitions and to withstand internal or external stressors do not exist. This is where Creating Ceremonies: Innovative Ways to Meet Adoption Challenges comes in.

The authors, a single mother with two adopted children and a social worker specializing in adoption, have joined forces to create a rich and vital resource to help adoptive families better cope with the day-to-day changes and challenges of life together. Carefully written to reach out to the range of families - two-parent, single-parent, foster-parent, as well as families with gay or lesbian parents and those of multiracial, multiethnic, or multicultural origin - the ceremonies presented here cover the spectrum of life-cycle phases, from preadoptive to moving in, from adjustment to reinforcement and beyond.

Among the ceremonies: "Forever Family," "Getting Ready for a New Person in the Family," "End of the School Year," "There Is a Place for Both of Us," "Rejection and Abandonment," "Monsters and Nightmares," "The Day We Met," "You Are Safe Here." Used verbatim or customized to address a similar situation or a specific interactive style, the scripts will help family members move toward fresh, energized perspectives. They can be used again and again to provide short-term resolutions to particular problems and to reflect a long-term commitment to the family's well-being.

An appropriate way to say "welcome home" -- or to say "goodbye." A means to express painful feelings. A bridge between differing perspectives. A helping hand to a youngster in trouble. A commitment to hope. Another milestone. For the professionals who work with adoptive families - for the families themselves - Creating Ceremonies extends and enriches the vocabulary of caring.

Cheryl A. Lieberman, Ph.D., is a single adoptive parent. Her sons, Eric and Christopher, both from the same birth family, came to live with her when they were seven years old and six years old respectively. They have an open adoption arrangement.

Dr. Lieberman holds a Master's in Social Work and City Planning and a Ph.D. in Organizational Planning from the University of Pennsylvania. She is Founder and President of Cornerstone Consulting Group, Cambridge, Mass., which provides strategic performance enhancement and training services to numerous profit and nonprofit organizations.

Rhea K. Bufferd, LICSW, has been an adoption social worker since 1974, when she joined the Massachusetts Department of Social Service. She went on to work with Cambridge Family and Children's Services and is currently an adoption consultant to the Adoption Resources Program at Jewish Family and Children's Service.

Ms. Bufferd earned her MSW at Boston University School of Social Work and did post-graduate work in family therapy at the Institute at Newton.