Center For Family Connections

PACT Services | Groups | The Adoption Wellness Center (TAWC) | Contracts and Collaborations

Pre/Post Adoption Consulting Team (PACT) Services

Consultation
PACT provides consultation to clarify issues and to identify options for complex blended families. PACT assists therapists, private and public agencies, hospitals, schools, residential treatment centers, lawyers, judges, educators, clergy, and other support services who work with these families to identify, understand, and integrate the developmental issues that are unique to this population.

Phone Consultations
CFFC offers phone consultations, by senior clinicians and experts in their field, to families and professionals who wish guidance and technical assistance on issues regarding adoption, foster care, kinship, guardianship, and alternative reproductive technologies. To schedule a consultation, contact CFFC.

Ongoing Therapy
The CFFC team also provides ongoing therapy for individuals, couples, and families who live in the world of adoption.

Groups
The group model at CFFC provides trained clinicians to work with people as they make sense of, and normalize, their own life experience. CFFC offers many different types of groups, such as long-term, short-term, and daylong, for all members of the adoption triad (birthparents, adoptees, and adoptive parents).

The goal of the group model in the future is to continue to provide groups for all members of the triad as well as to reach a wider age range. CFFC would like to expand our groups so that they will reach more children and families.

Clinically Supervised Visits
PACT provides clinically supervised visitation for families who are connected with CFFC. Our model is designed to structure interactions so that the ties that bind children to birth families, foster families, or other significant people are managed in the best interests of the child and are encouraged throughout the lives of the children and adults involved.

Clinician Connection: A Fee for Service Network
CFFC realizes the need for more adoption competent professionals. We have pioneered the creation of a network that allows us to arrange for consultation and treatment in the greater Boston area and further afield. Through CFFC we are planning to create a network that will allow us to arrange for consultation and treatment in the greater Boston area and further afield. This new and exciting program melds out expert training courses and the community's needs by providing excellent clinical services beyond Cambridge and Boston.

Clinical Supervision of Professionals
The Big Picture: An expert eye to the complex cases that present at our Center and in our community. Phone supervision/consultation is also offered.

Clinical Mediation
CFFC provides a highly expert service to families, clinicians, attorneys, and other professionals who are involved in the families' lives. Dr. Pavao's model of clinical mediation is a process whereby the best interest of the children is the central focus and the adults are guided to make decisions based on that one goal. The issues are reframed in clinically appropriate language and a safe container is created so that all the family members, along with the collaterals, are working together for the children.

Judges and courts cannot mandate relationships. Clinical mediation is a venue for understanding and developing an extended family model where the child is the centerpiece and a true and deep relationship is needed.

Family Group Contributions
What is a Family Group Contribution?
A Family Group Contribution (FGC) is a way for families to bolster an individual in the family who might be struggling. It’s a way to establish a supportive frame of reference from which an individual can further develop their sense of identity. It’s a way to celebrate a family member. It’s a way to generate movement when an individual or family feels stuck in an issue. It’s a way to join and to motivate. It’s a rite of passage. It’s an opportunity for growth.

Where does the Family Group Contribution come from?
Some may be familiar with FGCs from Project Inclusion ‘Zine Group, where an FGC was called a Joining and Motivating (JAM) Session. Having witnessed the powerful impact of JAM Sessions on families and individuals, and having received praise and gratitude from Jam Session participants, we at Center For Family Connections (CFFC) decided to offer JAM Sessions (aka FGCs) as a separate entity from Project Inclusion.

How do Family Group Contributions work?
In this model, an individual is encouraged to invite important people in his/her life (e.g. parents, foster parents, coaches, teachers, kin, guardians, therapists, mentors, extended family) to attend an FGC. During the FGC—and with the guidance of a CFFC clinician—these important people illustrate through verbal, written or other expressive media the individual’s strengths and unique attributes and what he/she means to them. (Guiding questions may be tailored to solicit information to address the individual’s needs.) Then, also with the support of a CFFC clinician, the individual witnesses the discussion that results from the contributions and has a safe space in which to process it and grow.

What have other people said about Family Group Contributions?
“A life transforming event.”
“See yourself through the eyes of others.”
“You get your car tuned up every once in a while—why not your ‘self’?”

How do I arrange a Family Group Contribution for me or for someone in my family?

1. Call CFFC at 617-547-0909 to schedule an ‘intake phone interview.’
2. Do the phone intake.
3. Wait for a CFFC clinician to call you to schedule your FGC.
4. Come in for a pre-FGC session.
5. Come in for the FGC.
6. Come in for a post-FGC session.