Education Center for Adoptive Parents (ECAP)

This three-part parent training program was created to enhance the competence of adoptive parents and advance the long-term healthy adjustment of adopted children. ECAP offers pre- and post-adoptive parents skills to handle adoption-related issues within their families and communities. ECAP targets factors known to mediate the effects of risk factors on adopted children's outcomes.

• Creating Family
• Communication
• Race, Culture, and Identity

Creating Family: helps prospective parents consider the emotional, ethical, financial and legal implications of adopting a child.  It also offers parents opportunities for self-reflection. Prepares parents for the child's emotional, mental and physical transitions into their families. Addresses the importance of child's identity and birth names and what risk factors they may have experienced pre-adoption.

Run time: 57 minutes.

Communication: provides parents and children tools to better enable them to talk about their story with each other, friends and family, as well as people in the community. An additional video features interviews with adoptees, parents and professionals discussing ways to speak with children about their adoption story. This program is a good resource to learn the language of adoption and feel comfortable communicating with others about adoption.

  Run time: 44 minutes.

Race, Culture, and Identity: encourages multiracial and multicultural families to develop a healthy racial identity through discussion and self-education of culture, diversity and race. An additional video features interviews with adoptees and adoptive parents discussing racial identity.

  Run time: 34 minutes.