Programs & Initiatives

Counseling Services

Adoption Rhode Island provides adoption and permanency-competent, trauma-informed counseling services for foster and adopted children, as well as those impacted by foster care and adoption, including adult adoptees, kinship caregivers, and adoptive parents.

Services include home-based and agency-based outpatient services, such as individual, family, and sibling assessment, a variety of support groups, and consultation to the community, including teachers, doctors, and clinicians across RI and beyond. Services are individualized and responsive to the unique needs of the children, teens, and adult we serve. Our clinicians are trained in numerous evidenced-based and promising practices and are skilled in treating children who have experienced loss, grief, separation and trauma.

Please contact Esther Robbins, Child & Family Support Program Coordinator, at 401-865-6000 x312 or Erobbins@adoptionri.org for more information.

Evidence-based practices and promising models that ARI’s team of clinicians and practitioners are trained to use in our holistic child-centered approach include:

  • Trauma-focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
  • Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
  • Dialectical Behavior Therapy
  • Collaborative Problem Solving
  • Attachment Regulation and Competency
  • 3-5-7 Model ®
  • Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing
  • Motivational Interviewing
  • Mental Health First Aid
  • Theraplay® – DDP (Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy) and Child Centered Play Therapy

Enrichment Activities and Services

Creative Arts

Adoption Rhode Island provides numerous expressive arts experiential workshops throughout the year. These workshops are for children and youth impacted by foster care and adoption. They provide children with an opportunity to be with other children with similar experiences, and explore, exercise an develop their creativity through multiple artistic modalities. For more information, contact Bernie Hicks bhicks@adoptionri.org

Forever Siblings Program

One of Adoption Rhode Island’s core beliefs is supporting, encouraging, and facilitating healthy sibling relationships, particularly when siblings are separated in the child welfare system. We honor the importance of the sibling relationship, which research shows can be more powerful than a child’s bond to a parent.

In 2017, a group Adoption Rhode Island staff came together and created a 4-day overnight summer camp program that brought siblings together who had been separated in care. For these few days, siblings were able to bunk together, build fun childhood memories, and live carefree in the beautiful landscape of Camp Aldersgate in Foster, RI (insert link here). Since this first year, the size of the program has nearly tripled, bringing together more and more siblings, some of whom have not seen each other in months

In 2019, Adoption Rhode Island further brought to life the program’s vision to include sibling reunion events, as well as on-going clinical support to assist siblings in repairing disconnected relationships. It is the agency’s hope through further expansion that more sibling groups will be served, healed, and reunified so they may enjoy their sibling relationships long into adulthood.

If you wish to learn more about the Forever Siblings program, including how to volunteer, please contact our Child & Family Support program at supportinfo@adoptionri.org.

Summer Camp Scholarship Program

Some of a child’s greatest joys are experienced during those warm summer breaks from school. Attending camp is often one of those joys. For children in foster care, childhood experiences are sometimes overshadowed by the complexities of living in a child welfare system, which is why Adoption Rhode Island has worked closely with the community to create our Summer Camp Scholarship Program. Since the early 2000s, through multiple community partnerships, Adoption Rhode Island has been able to provide more than 500 “camperships” for children and teens in foster care to attend day camp, in-state overnight camp, and even out-of-state overnight camp, allowing children to have fun, build new friendships, and long-lasting memories.

This program is open to foster and adopted children. For information, contact ELyon@adoptionri.org

Holiday Gifts Program

Since the early 2000s, Adoption Rhode Island has hosted a holiday gifts program to ensure that children in the state’s foster care system have a holiday season to remember! Adoption Rhode Island works closely with its generous giving community to ensure that the wishes of our children are fulfilled during the holiday season, whether it be a new warm winter coat, a remote control car, or set of art supplies. Since inception, our holiday giving program has grown to be six times the size it once was, providing gifts for more than 500 children every year! If you or someone you know would like to support our holiday gifts drive, please contact Bernie Hicks at bhicks@adoptionri.org!

Cardi’s Furniture Cares About Kids Program

NIROPE provides gift cards for furniture to children adopted on National Adoption Day as well as to children adopted through Adoption Rhode Island throughout the year. This program has helped hundreds of children pick out new beds, bureaus and other pieces of furniture to help them celebrate their adoption day. No community referrals to this program.

Learn more about our Counseling & Family Support Programs

Kinship Groups

Across the country and here in RI, the number of grandparents, other relatives, and family friends caring for children has grown exponentially. These caregivers are often referred to as kinship caregivers. This Rhode Island Department of Children, Youth and Families funded program provides multiple monthly support groups for kinship caregivers. These groups offer kinship families an opportunity to talk, share, ask questions, and receive support from one another. Groups are facilitated by staff with clinical and/or lived experience. Groups are confidential and free of charge.

VOCA-funded Services

Adoption RI is a grantee of the Rhode Island Department of Public Safety. This program provides trauma-informed clinical counseling services to eligible children and families impacted by foster care and adoption through federal funding under the Victim of Crime Act (VOCA). These services include individual, family and group counseling services, as well as information and referral, access to enrichment and psychoeducational programming. Services are provided in the home, community or office. Virtual services are available.

Preserving Families

This RI Department of Children, Youth and Families funded program provides a trauma-informed, strength-based assessment framed in the normative process of development within an adoptive family. Evidence-based practices including the Attachment Regulation and Competency (ARC) model are utilized to support families. This family centered program will work with each family member to develop a treatment plan that is carefully tailored to meet the specific needs of the child and family.

 

Services are provided in the home, at the agency and in the community. Virtual services are also available. Families receive two to four contacts with the program per week for approximately six months, including:

  • Individual, family and group counseling
  • Parent education
  • Support groups
  • Case management and advocacy
  • Enrichment activities
  • Evening and after-hours support