Nurturing Adoptions: Creating Resilience after Neglect and Trauma

Adoption has changed dramatically in less than a decade. With higher and higher percentages of children joining their families not as newborns, but from domestic or international foster care or from orphanages abroad, both parents and the professionals with whom they consult need new skills.

From the author of Attaching in Adoption (already a must-have book for both adoptive parents and placement professionals) comes this new tool designed to help placement professionals and therapists whose practices are not focused specifically on adoption and attachment understand how new research on the impact of neglect, abuse, early trauma, and institutionalization on the developing brains of children can guide their practices in new directions. Nurturing Adoption s goal is to help professionals to assist parents in healing their children s and guiding them into strong and healthy relationships and productive adulthood.

The hardcover was a 2008 silver medalist in the Benjamin Franklin Awards!

Deborah Gray, founder of Nurturing Attachments, is a clinical social worker specializing in the areas of attachment, grief, and trauma. She has spent 20 years counseling children and families, specializing in children who are fostered or adopted. Her private practice philosophy is one of empowering parents with information and techniques so that their skills and styles are used in meeting the needs of their children. Her passion is to help children and their families to develop close, satisfying relationships

Deborah is a popular presenter due to her practical approaches of promoting attachment, shaping behavior, and working through trauma and grief. She teaches in the Cascadia /Northwest Adoption Resource and Portland State University Post-Graduate Certificate Programs in Foster Care and Adoption Therapy. She has keynoted national conferences including Joint Council of International Children s Services (JCICS), American Association of Adoption Attorneys (AAAA), Midwest Adoption Conference, ATTACh, and Families for Russian and Ukrainian Adoption.

Deborah received her Masters in Social Work from Syracuse University as well as a Masters in Public Administration in Health Care from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. She is a licensed social worker and licensed mental health counselor in the State of Washington. She has also been a therapeutic foster parent.

Deborah Gray is the author of the best-selling book, Attaching in Adoption: Practical Tools for Today s Parents, 2002, and Nurturing Adoptions: Creating Resilience after Neglect and Trauma, 2007