Jeanette Yoffe was interviewed for this podcast on February 16, 2018.
Podcaster Haley Radke invites Jeanette Yoffe to share what inspired her to begin a support group for adoptees. Discussion covers how to start your own group and best practices for peer-facilitated groups.
If starting or joining a support group feels too intimidating, don’t worry! Jeanette has a great idea for free support: find a listening partner.
The Adoption Constellation: New Ways of Thinking About and Practicing Adoption by Michael Phillip Grand
Using the term adoption constellation vs adoption triad
Adopt Salon constellation groups can include: adoptees, adoptive parents, first parents, foster youth, foster alumni, foster families, social workers, spouses, siblings
Suggested Support Group Rules:
We support each other here, we don’t fix each other – no unsolicited advice
Everyone gets a turn to share (5 minutes). What’s your name, what are you here for – do you have a question, do you want support for something in particular? You can share briefly about your story.
You can ask questions if you do want advice.
You can be here and not share: OWL (Observe, Watch and Listen)
Keep everything confidential that is shared in the group
We need firm and safe group rules so we don’t experience secondary trauma
Constellation groups help us examine adoption from multiple angles; helps in growing compassion and acknowledging it is a shared experience.
Celia Center support groups have been featured on OWN’s Television Show, “Raising Whitley” and TLC’s “Long Lost Family”
If you can’t find a group, don’t feel comfortable going to a group, don’t want to start your own… Find a listening partner! Book a regular call that is to someone who will just listen. Listen, receive and acknowledge.
Support groups to listen, share and support; you can also have guests come in and present, maybe for 15 minutes on different topics – mindfulness, an education piece about trauma, sharing their story… but leave space for the group to still share and discuss.
If a group has different members of the adoption constellation present, it’s best to have a licensed therapist to facilitate. For peer-led support, just having adult adoptees (for example) is safer.
Celia Center Arts Festival | Adopting Resilience, Fostering the Spirit of Creativity
Celia Center Arts Festival 2016 Summary Video
Check out adopteesconnect.com for new peer-led groups starting in the United States (started by Pamela Karanova of How Does it Feel to be Adopted)
If you have another resource of places to find in-person adoptee support groups, please get in touch so I can list it here.
10:15am
On Life’s Terms: Mothers in Recovery Laura Dotson • Ruth Beaglehole
A Vision For Adoption in the 21st Century with Adam Pertman
Setting the Record Straight: 5 Myths of Domestic Adoption with Carra Greenberg
Healing the Wound: A Body-Mind Approach with Noah Rothschild
Foster Care Alumni Panel – Hear our Voices, Listen with Your Heart- NEW! Jeanette Yoffe
12:00pm
Lunch Buffet
1:15pm
Acknowledging Guilt and Shame as the Doorway to Connection and Love with Sophie Bain • Sandi Stuart
Infant Massage and Attachment with Hillary Wilson
The Challenge of Responsible and Attuned Adoption Revelation: New Thinking & Understanding with Anne Brodzinksy
“Birthmother” One-Woman Play with Deanna Ross
Unfolding the Open Adoption Process with Jeanette Yoffe
2:30pm
Coffee/Brownie/Cookie Break
2:45 pm
Disrupted Adoptions, Contributing Factors & Intervention Strategies with Adam Pertman
Light and Shadows: Exploring Adoption Through the Arts with Anne Brodzinksy • Laura Callen • Daniel Barash
Inside Transracial Adoption: Breaking the Racial Sound Barrier with Beth Hall
Forgiveness: The Final Frontier with Dee Dee Mascarenas
Recovering the Child: Resolving Developmental Trauma Disorder with Neurological Reorganization with Bette Lamont
4:15 pm Adopted: For the Life of Me Documentary Screening with Trish Lay
Limit Setting through Connection with Darlynn Childress
Identity Challenges of an International Adoption with Susan Smiley
Permanency, Loss, Trauma & Attachment – Role of Mental Health in the Healing Process with Dr. Greg Manning
Male Adoptee Panel with Brian Stanton, Ridghaus Nin, Noah Rothschild
6:00pm
Closing Healing Ritual and Energy Wolfdog from Wolf Connection with Jeanette Yoffe • Trish Lay • Wolf Connection • Red Spirit Fusion
Jeanette Yoffe M.F.T. became the Executive Director of the Celia Center, Inc. Founded July 16, 2011.
Jeanette was inspired in 2007, after working for five years, as a Foster Care Social Worker and Psychotherapist, with the agency, Southern California Foster Family Agency, now named, Extraordinary Families. She went on maternity leave, became a mother, and started a private practice working with families connected by foster care and adoption, she named Yoffe Therapy. In 2009, she could see foster and adoptive parents did not understand the foster care experience, let alone the adoptee experience. It was then, that she started the Adopt Salon Support Group, to bring adoptees, adoptive parents, and birth parents together to bridge compassion and understanding with the vision to create as many of these services as possible for the Los Angeles Community, those including mental health conferences, arts festivals, and wolf healings. Thus creating a place called Celia Center, named after her first-birth mother, Celia, whom she had reunion with in
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. 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 and teens 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.
Listen to her One Woman Play, “What’s Your Name, Who’s Your Daddy?” written in 1999, which inspired her to leave the theater and become a professional in the field. Listen HERE
Jeanette Yoffe was interviewed for this podcast on February 16, 2018.
