Right-Time Testimonials

General

• The ones I reviewed were very good and I wish I would have had them over 7 years ago when we first got licensed as foster parents!
• I have to tell you, that was one of the most helpful and insightful trainings I have ever seen – simply amazing (and I’m a teacher so I sit through A LOT of trainings)!!! I can’t wait to review the rest of them, just for fun!  I am geeking out about this!! Thanks again for this opportunity!!
• I really enjoyed reviewing these courses!  They were very helpful an educational!  Overall I loved the videos and my story podcasts. Being able to hear from parents or kids who have lived through certain experiences and what helped or didn’t was so very helpful and encouraging.
• These trainings are so vital! I especially appreciate the consideration of former foster youth and hearing their voices.
• I really enjoyed the birth story segment video and made my husband watch it too. I think it will be really helpful for us and I plan to talk to our girls about their story, even though they say they don’t remember their birth parents.
• I wish something like this had been available 23 years ago when we adopted our first child from China.  It would have been so helpful.  It is very well done.
• I love the videos and readings for better understandings and also the personal stories shared.
• I loved hearing straight from the family living thru these experiences and sharing their story.
• I loved the podcast and hearing firsthand experience from a former foster youth.
• I really, really like the Q&A. Those are great!

Sensory Integration

• Great overview, I am an occupational therapist so I knew most of the background information, although I thought the video was well done and was engaging. I LOVED hearing from the adoptive parents in the video and seeing what strategies they used. The most helpful part of the training is definitely “real life” examples of things you can do to help your child.
• The concrete examples help me visualize my own child. I also found the non-responsive interesting and something I knew less about. I thought the training gave a great overview of sensory integration while providing best practices to implement in the household.
• I found this to be a very good refresher for me, and I think it would be EXTREMELY helpful for all foster/adoptive parents to have this training before having children placed in their home.
• It was very informative. The experts and specialist talked with a great level of understanding but it was not over the learner’s head.
• The charts were excellent and helped me to better understand what a child with SPD may be experiencing. I will look at behaviors much differently – from a needs perspective before considering that it is willful behavior.
• The sensory Journal is a really good activity every parent should do, even for bio and neuro-typical children.
• This is something that isn’t talked about much and it was fascinating to learn more about it.

Responding to Children in Crisis

• The My Story video was very helpful. I always like hearing from people who have actually lived through these experiences. It provides insights I would not otherwise have been aware of.
• It was helpful to hear that the child isn’t seeing me during the time of a crisis, just every other person that has ever hurt her.

Sexual Trauma

• I appreciated the video, my story, and the practical content. I have taken similar courses before, but there wasn’t as much information. It was very informative and helpful.
• I find it extremely useful that the breakdown of signs to look for were discussed and how different ages of children will show signs in various ways.
• I have always been fearful of a situation arising dealing in this. Your training addresses this fear and gave me helpful information on how to handle it in the best way.
• I thought that the how to talk to abused children about sex was really good.
• It is helping to understand how to deal with the children not like I parent but in a much better way of parenting.
• Offers hope for the child to overcome. A lot of information but in a brief engaging format.
• The information in the video is very helpful and very informative. I was very impressed with how the video covered this topic.

Visitation 

• Hearing the podcast was great because it was personal stories with real experience. Also, the visitation notebook is a great resource to provide in this training.
• I liked the specific steps we can take/things we can do to support parents and children into and out of visitations.
• I loved the podcast and hearing from a child who has been in the situation. I also think it is helpful to know that a child just needs time to decompress after a visit as it could be extremely emotional for them.
• I thought the podcast with the child that was in the foster system was great. Great to hear from the child’s perspective.
• The podcast was helpful. Hearing from people that have been through the tough times surrounding visits is very helpful.
• Some of the information was new to me and very helpful. I have new ideas I plan to put into place like the visitation notebook.
• The video as extremely helpful and well put together. The story and real life experiences from those in the video were great teaching tools.

Sexual Development Identity

• I think all materials were relevant; regardless of the fact that I have only parented preschool-aged children BUT, a lot of information was still interesting to me since I will obviously one day be parenting preteens/teens/young adults.
• I loved the interview with the adoptive mom and child.
• I really enjoyed hearing the youth’s stories and hearing it from their viewpoint. Helps to understand what things hurt them and what things helped them.
• I think this training is most helpful in ensuring that future care givers lead with an open mind in all aspects of a child’s life.
• It helped me to understand different points of view and the appropriate approach when the time comes. Above all we need to build trust in our kids so they can feel safe and have a healthy sexual development.
• it was self- paced and it allowed me to digest the information in my own time. The video with the experts was helpful.
• The content was really good, and very applicable to helping parent a teen.
• The Q&A were great, because they addressed all the key issues. A number of the Resources were also really good, looking at different aspects of LGBTQ people and SOGIE in adoption and foster care.
• This training was the MOST educational for me, and I think it would benefit every parent to have it.

Preparing for Adulthood 

• I found that the resource section being very helpful, so that if I ever have any questions I can go back and check those different resources.
• Knowing there are a lot of resources available for foster children aging out of the system lets me know how I can advocate for my future foster children.
• What I found most helpful was the personal experiences and what they suggested to do for other children. I can relate more to them and try to apply real life ideas to my future children.

Managing Placement Transitions

• I found the information about how to welcome a child into your home and things to do to make them feel comfortable was very helpful.
• I thought that the video was amazing. I loved hearing from the two foster mothers and the different things they did to make children feel welcome-special dinner, asking them how they wanted to be woke up in the morning, putting the new child’s photo up on the wall as soon as the child entered their home I was especially struck by the story where the foster mother washed the child’s blanket and thought she was doing the right things, and then realizing that the blanket had smelled like her father.
• It was helpful to hear a different perspective on how children feel with a new placement and different ways families cope with a new placement.
• Loved the personal story blog and the other video. Lots of great info and easy to follow. I also liked the inclusion of resources.
• The podcast with the young woman from foster care and experienced the transitions was powerful. It helped to hear in her words what she needed, what parent could/should say, etc. This could easily be expanded to a group discussion with other individuals to get even more ideas and a better sense of what children experience during transitions.

Life Story: Birth and Adoption Story

• Good and comprehensive unit, I liked the podcast add-in.
• Great information from first hand experiences.
• Great insight into the eyes of the adopted child.
• I thought it was good to show how the adoptive parents made mistakes with their first child and how they learned from those mistakes.
• How to respectfully present the difficult parts of the adoptions story. I also appreciated the prompts to personalize, to practice before talking to the child and look for your own unintended non-verbal cues. I appreciated the modeled apology in the video, as the parent reconnected with their oldest child.
• I liked adoptee centered message and the focus on openness and the importance of honesty in a developmentally appropriate timeframe.
• I loved that the video showed how the parents got it wrong with their first child. I loved the open honesty of the situation. The parents did what they thought was protecting their son but in it actually harmed him and their relationship. I loved how this was the perfect example of how important it is to be open with children. I loved that you guys and these parents were not afraid to show the ugly truth. So many people think adoption is rainbows and cupcakes, but it’s not and it’s deep and hard. Thank you for allowing the hard honesty.
• Just watching the training reminded me that I need to make a life book for my child now even though he is really young, because their questions and curiosity starts early.
• It talked a lot about starting at a younger age than what I had thought before. It helped me realize that it’s ok to start talking about my child’s birth story now.

Family Dynamics

• For me the section about asking how the kids celebrated holidays. I never had thought to ask how they celebrate.
• I found that the material was written in a very understandable way.
• I found that the video was the most helpful because when I was listening to the video and hearing the stories about their situations, I was able to look back at times here in my home and how I could have done things differently which cased me to think about things.
• I liked the tips for helping children already in the home. Many other trainings focus solely on the incoming child.
• I really found the foster mother’s suggestions to be very helpful. I liked how she shared that they did not correct or punish the child who came to their home using swear words and how they told the foster father’s father who was a preacher that he needed to respect their parenting decisions.
• It was very clearly laid out and easy to understand. Someone who doesn’t have experience with trauma could easily implement these ideas.

Intercountry Adoption Medical Considerations

• All the information was displayed in an engaging way, with a good amount of information, but not too much.
• I appreciate that the training not only touched on some common medical issues, but also further explained the medical visa appointment and recommended things like confirming with your insurance company.
• I really enjoyed hearing from Dr. Dana Johnson and learning about his experiences in visiting orphanages. I was struck by what he said that even thought there was plenty of food in the orphanages, kids still did not eat as their social and care giving needs were not being met.
• Highly respected Presenters, easy to follow and well presented.

Education

• All information was relevant/great.
• For new foster parents, this is one of the MOST critical pieces of learning for them as they try to navigate the education system and all the resources and services out there, especially if they don’t have older kids who are already in school! Just the terminology alone in this training is HUGE. But the “lessons learned” and the encouragement to fight for your kids is great!
• I am a teacher, so most of this I am more than familiar with, but as an educational piece for non-educators the Q and A section was very thorough and we’ll developed. I also really enjoyed the personal account podcast again, very powerful.
• I think this is a great video and I wish I would have had it when my children were small. I feel it is extremely important for all caregivers to know this information.
• Q&A section was very informative. Breaking down the signs by age groups, as well as providing definitions of IEP’s is key.
   

Common Feelings Associated with Being Adopted

• The video with bullet points throughout helped me to stay focused and really attend to the important parts of the video. I also like the key points document as a reference.
• Congratulations for presenting a breadth of valuable information so succinctly and well. I especially appreciated hearing from adult adoptees. Such important food for thought/practice.
• Great questions and answers, especially information about sharing my feelings and background with my child as well.
• I really appreciated the first part of the video that stated that each child is different, but this is why you should be prepared for these situations and conversations. I also really liked the emphasis on the ambivalent feelings’ children might have and helping them see they can have both at the same time and it is ok. Finally, the section on loyalty was really good especially with the example of how a parent can love two kids, so it makes sense a child can love two parents.
• I thought the Adoptee was so eloquent when talking about comparing an adoptive family to flowers in a garden and how important it is to celebrate differences. I also really liked what the adoptive mom said about how it is perfectly fine to love all of your parents and that loving their birth parents in no way diminishes their love for her as an adoptive parent.

Building Parental Resilience

• I appreciated the practical examples of self-care that were given in the video.
• I liked the resources that can be reviewed at any time. I bookmarked them!
• It is an excellent reminder of how important self-care is. It encourages me to re-evaluate my self-care.
• It was a really nice reminder and reality check that I need to make time for myself too.

Building Children’s Resilience

• A lot of information on what to expect and things I had not thought of before.
• I enjoyed all of the examples for returning a child from deregulated to a normal. functional state. The video included some specific ones that I will be including in daily life.
• I found the My Story podcast to be most helpful as it gave real life insight to building a resilient child.
• The content was very specific and practical.
• Loved the My Story!
• The discussion questions were precise and helpful to think about how to establish routines and how to ask the child what they need. I like that it also promotes their strengths and capitalizing on them!
• The practical ideas for providing tools to my kids was so helpful. Not just theory, but actual things I could do today.

Accessing Services and Supports

• Both of the professionals featured in the video seemed very experienced and knowledgeable. I also liked how the video showed the need for different kinds of support systems-both professional and personal.
• Establishing resources from formal to informal PRIOR to the need. Learned how this is critical and record keeping/documentation is invaluable.
• I really appreciated the graphics in the video which broke down the different sources of support that parents can reach out to in order to support their children.