M. Moreira

Margarida Henriques

S. Ramos Silva

English

Repositório Aberto da Universidade do Porto

MONOGRAPHIC SIMPOSIA / SIMPOSIOS TEMÁTICOS87- University of Porto is focused on supporting children and families in foster care and adoption in several aspects and phases. This work directs to different levels of the professional network that supports these processes in Portugal, from the institution to the adoptive family, in order to build a common narrative for all the professionals that work with the child. In our understanding, this common narrative and a good communication between professionals is crucial to help the child’s healthy development, through security, nurturance, and social contacts. The training and super-vision of professionals in residential care and adoption services, developed in both professional and academic settings encompasses an individualized supervision in specific intervention practices or case discussion, in order to achieve a better adjustment between the inter-vention and the needs of the situation. Another level of our intervention is focused on the personal develop-ment of the professionals and teams. This work follows a systemic model, focusing on the interaction between all the actors and systems of care of the children and families. When a child is placed in a foster care residence, a new triangular system comes into being, composed by home direction team, management team, and caregivers team, all linked by their concern for the child. It is essential that this triangular system develops an effective interaction and collaborations. Collabora-tion means that people are in contact and function as a network, sharing information, professional-personnel experiences and solving problems by mutual effort. The high level of satisfaction of the professionals with the supervision, as well as, their description about its benefits in the improvement of practices and personal wellbeing is also one concern.  C118. THE CUBIC MODEL FOR ADOPTIVE FAMILIES: A CLINICAL CASE WITH SIBLINGSRamos Silva, S., Rangel Henriques, M., Moreira, M.FPCEUP, Porto, PortugalAdoption is considered a powerful intervention to promote the child’s physical and mental health recovery, but it also brings loss and grief to children and adoptive parents. After the family withdrawal, a maltreated or neglected child begins a course of emotionally demand-ing transitions. These transitions may become critical, potentially traumatic and may threaten the continuity in construction of the self. This discontinuity in life experiences and in the self may become too difficult to integrate into one's story and thus it can compromise the child’s capacity to build new bonds, focus on learn-ing demands and construct her identity. It is crucial to support the child in these transition moments and to help her integrate traumatic experiences, since a positive and confident concept of self will be essential for the development, and well-being of the children and young people. With this in mind, we consider that exploring the child’s life story will help her organize the past/present experience and become more available to future relationships. Developed in the Unit of Adoption of the Psychological Support Service at the Faculty of Psychology of the University of Porto, the cubic psycho-therapeutic model provided a framework for the psycho-logical intervention in these cases. Nevertheless, each case is also conducted according to its specificities, according to the child’s and the situation needs. This model focus on the child, the family and other systems of the child's life (e.g., school), and inspired on system-ic, cognitive and narrative models. In this presentation, the model will be illustrated with a case of two adopted siblings. We will explore specific techniques regarding the exploration of the past life story of the children, as well as the support of the co-construction of a new present narrative with the new family. C119. THE HEART MAP: ENHANCING IDENTITY WITHIN ADOPTIVE FAMILYDuarte Cavadas, I., Rangel Henriques, M.FPCEUP, Porto, PortugalAdoption brings the opportunity to children to con-struct bonds into a new familiar system, however, they also have the challenge to overcome the feelings of fear, rejection and guilt, that sometimes emerge related with their past experiences. The separation from the biolog-ical parents and also from the siblings is a dolorous experience (McRoy, 1999). Due to this, adoptive children often experience several periods of discontinuation in their life story, which may bring psychological suffering and sometimes limit their sense of belonging within the adoptive family, being sometimes unable to correspond to the biological parent’s expectations and requirements. These discontinuities could put the adopted children into a puzzling situation, mainly in adolescence, while they are crossing the developmental step of constructing their sense of self and identity. In this phase, the necessity to know more about their past and origins could emerge, having the function of fixing the gaps of their life story and resolve mixed emotions. The complexity of these processes and the variability in separation experiences, require the development of research and clinical inter-ventions to understand the impact and support adoptive families across this period of their life cycle (Brodzinsky, 2009). Based on the clinical experience, this communi-cation aims to reflect about the familiar system needs in the described circumstances, considering the factors that help the family to settle during a crisis moment of the adopted child/adolescent. It also has the goal of ex-posing the need of the children to connect with the past, concerning the need of differentiation from their origins or to establish proximity, for example, with the siblings. C120. WHEN THE CHILD LEAVES  THE RESIDENTIAL CARE: BUILDING  SAFE TRANSITIONSNeves Teixeira, D. FPCEUP, Porto, PortugalThe child who lives in foster care has seen their life course be decided by the adults. The system decisions concern the child’s safety, however it represents a big change in the lives of children. When they arrive at foster care have to adapt to a new environment, specifically, caregivers and the daily routines. This situation is often 

The cubic model for adoptive families: a clinical case with siblings

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https://repositorio-aberto.up.pt/bitstream/10216/126016/2/383409.pdf

The cubic model for adoptive families: a clinical case with siblings

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Repositório Aberto da Universidade do Porto

Open Repository of the University of Porto