Support for All Members of the Foster Care and Adoption Constellation

Celia Center is a 501c3 non-profit organization based in greater Los Angeles.

Adopt Salon Constellation Support Group Founded 2009

Pre/Post Foster Care & Adoption Constellation Support Group – NOW ON ZOOM – ALL INVITED FROM ACROSS THE COUNTRY

A monthly virtual open support group for all members of the Adoption Constellation: First-Birth Parents, Adoptees, Former Foster Youth, Foster Parents, Legal Guardians, Adoptive Parents and Kinship Families.

A place for the Adoption & Foster Care community to come together to share stories, thoughts, feelings, ideas, receive psycho-education, process grief/loss, learn about search and reunion, and build strong bonds/connections.

Facilitated by Adoption Psychotherapist in Training and Adult Adoptee
Cathy Koley, Supervised by Founder Jeanette Yoffe M.F.T.

In 2014, a study was conducted HERE on the efficacy of this group.

93% of the participants agreed or strongly agreed that:
The support group increased their knowledge and provided a safe place for them to share stories, thoughts, feelings, and ideas.

87% of the participants agreed or strongly agreed that:
The support group provided opportunities for them to process grief and loss.
The support group provided them with opportunities to build strong bonds and connections with others.

91% of the participants agreed or strongly agreed that:
They are able to understand themselves better because of this group.

Participants reported:

1. I understand my adopted daughter much more since coming to this group.

2. I learned priceless information regarding the emotional well-being of the adoption and foster community.

3. I am better able to understand, relate, and talk to an adoptee and foster youth.

4. I have learned how to approach an upcoming reunion.

5. I am developing better relationships and intimacy with family.

7. I recommend this group to anyone in the experience of adoption and foster care!

logo art for Celia Center Arts Festival
New Children's Book!
Open Adoption: Is it worth the angst, fear and complication?

Open Adoption: Is it worth the angst, fear and complication?

For decades adoption was shrouded in secrecy, shame and sealed records. In the early 1990s a new way of adoption—called open adoption— slowly began to take hold. Open adoption means that the adoptive and the birth families are known to each other and can maintain contact. Today, most adoptions are open. 

read more
29 Things I Wish I Knew Before Adoption Entered my Life

29 Things I Wish I Knew Before Adoption Entered my Life

A first mother shares her story about planning an adoption and speaks from the heart. This Grown in My Heart Adoption Carnival Topic was supposed to be “10 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Was Touched By Adoption”, but I can’t use the feel good wording of “touched”. I was not touched by adoption, it’s more like torched, trampled, traumatized, terrorized, tortured and torn apart by adoption.

read more
Trauma Informed Support with Bryan Post & Jeanette Yoffe MFT

Adoption and Foster Care Competency Online Training

Get 36 hours of continuing Education Units in one place: Adoption and Foster Care Competent Courses.

• Watch the Video Modules
• Take the Test
• Receive Certificate of Completion!!!

Courses are 1 hour of CEU Credit for each Module as follows in a bundle:

  • GENERAL EXPERIENCES WITH ADOPTED CHILDREN – All AGES
  • DEVELOPMENTAL TASKS OF ADOPTED CHILDREN AGES 0-5
  • DEVELOPMENTAL TASKS OF ADOPTED CHILDREN AGES 6-8
  • DEVELOPMENTAL TASKS OF ADOPTED CHILDREN AGES 9-12
  • DEVELOPMENTAL TASKS OF ADOPTED TEENS AGES 12-18
  • Adoption Competency Part I
  • Adoption Competency Part II
  • Adoption Competency Part III
  • Adoption Competency Part IV
  • Adoption Competency Part V
  • TRAUMA INFORMED PARENTING Part I
  • TRAUMA INFORMED PARENTING Part II
  • SEVEN CORE ISSUES FOR BIRTH FIRST PARENTS
  • SEVEN CORE ISSUES FOR ADOPTEES
  • SEVEN CORE ISSUES FOR ADOPTIVE PARENTS
  • REAL TALK: RACE, ADOPTION & IDENTITY
  • STEPPING IN THE SHOES OF THE FOSTERED-ADOPTED PERSON
  • FOSTER YOUTH DIVERSITY PANEL
  • OPEN ADOPTION? OPEN FOSTER CARE?
  • GRIEF: THE 5 LETTER WORD UNSPOKEN
  • ADOPTION & ADDICTION
  • NEUROBIOLOGY OF TRAUMA
  • ON LIFE TERMS: MOTHERS IN RECOVERY
  • COLOMBIAN ADOPTEES PANEL
  • SUPPORTING FOSTER & ADOPTIVE PARENTS
  • HOW NEW YORK RESTORED UNRESTRICTED ACCESS
  • UNLOCK THE STORY WITHIN
  • HOW TO NAVIGATE ANCESTRY DNA

Celia Center provides CEU's in Los Angeles

Post-Adoption Transitional Support

5 Hours of Continuing Education. This course was designed to help parents and professionals understand the general experiences children may exhibit in adoption-related challenges that identify losses, understand the importance of attachment, and explore common questions for adoptees.

Meet Jeanette Yoffe

Executive Director of the Celia Center, Inc.
Psychotherapist and Adult Foster Alum/Adoptee

Jeanette’s desire to become a child therapist with a special focus on adopted and foster care issues derived from her own experience of being adopted and moving through the foster care system in New York City, ethnically born to Argentinean and Irish parents. She is now blazing a trail as a resident in Los Angeles for 20 years with Celia Center and Yoffe Therapy, a group mental health center. Her personal experience has informed her education and provided insight into the unique stresses involved with these issues. Because of Jeanette’s life experience, she can more easily connect and relate to the children, teens, adults and their families she works with. She is an exceptional child-care worker who is dedicated to helping each of her clients reach their full potential through mental health therapy and make the difficult journey from despair towards resiliency and hope. https://www.jeanetteyoffe.com/

"I just wanted to give a big THANK YOU for allowing me to be in your Adopt Salon group. It was absolutely amazing, empowering and nothing that I have ever heard before. Something of this magnitude would be so beneficial for social workers and parents to witness, and listen to. I can see this becoming huge. Your influence, compassion, and empathy illuminate in every member of the group."

Leticia Ann V., M.S.W., ASW

Children’s Social Worker

"Celia Center is a California non-profit center that nurtures and supports all members of the foster-adoption constellation by providing emotional, educational, and community engagement via support groups, conferences, arts festivals, wolf healings, and trainings. Our community includes adoptees, foster youth, birth families, foster and adoptive parents as well as those working in the field of child welfare. We strive to bridge compassion between each member of our family tree, in order to keep attachments strong, connected, and whole again. We value and celebrate the whole family, of all racial, ethnic, and socio-economic status…one child, one parent, one family, at a time."

Jeanette Yoffe, Executive Director

"As Mayor of the City of Los Angeles, and on behalf of its residents, I commend Celia Center . . . . I wish Celia Center continued success as [it supports] families through the tough but rewarding process of foster care and adoption."

Eric Garcetti, Mayor, City of Los Angeles

official certificate of appreciation of Celia Center by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti

Presented by Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti to Celia Center at the 2014 Facing Trauma with Truth Conference

Contact Celia Center

Ask a question or request information with the form below.

1968 S. Coast Highway #305 Laguna Beach CA 92651