Healing Series: Adoptees ON Podcast Support Groups with Jeanette Yoffe M.F.T.

Healing Series: Adoptees ON Podcast Support Groups with Jeanette Yoffe M.F.T.

by | Feb 16, 2018 | Blog, Featured

illustrated Adoptees On logoJeanette 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.

— Haley Radke: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook

Topics Discussed:

  • Celia Center
  • 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.

— Haley Radke: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook

source: <http://www.adopteeson.com/listen/hssupport>

Meet Jeanette Yoffe Founder of Celia Center Inc

Meet Jeanette Yoffe Founder of Celia Center Inc

by | Jan 1, 2011 | Blog, Featured

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.

Learn more about Jeanette’s Media Appearances HERE
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