University of Minnesota kicks off National Adoption Month with unveiling of new adoption certificate program

Minnesota Human Services Commissioner Jesson to take part in Nov. 1 news conference

What: Kick-off of new Permanency and Adoption Competency Certificate program and National Adoption Month
When: 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, Nov. 1
Where: U of M School of Social Work, Peters Hall atrium, 1404 Gortner Ave., St. Paul. Parking available in the Gortner Avenue Ramp: www.umn.edu/twincities/maps/GortRamp.

Minnesota Department of Human Services Commissioner Lucinda Jesson will join Traci LaLiberte, executive director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare, for a special news conference Nov. 1.

The news conference will introduce the university’s new Permanency and Adoption Competency Certificate (PACC) program and recognize November as National Adoption Month.

The university developed the PACC program together with the Center for Adoption Support and Education, a national resource organization, in response to community demand for a professional workforce to serve the unique and complex clinical and practice needs of adopted individuals and their families.

Public and private child welfare professionals work with children traumatized by abuse, neglect and abandonment as they adjust to life with foster, kin and adoptive families.

“Foster and adoptive families have identified the need for access to adoption-competent mental health and child welfare services,” LaLiberte says. “Our goal is to provide a network of competent professionals throughout the state of Minnesota through offering this advanced training program.”

The PACC program provides 90 hours of training along with 18 hours of clinical supervision. It teaches the knowledge and skills needed to competently work with the complex needs of families that have been impacted by foster care and adoption. Forty-two mental health and child welfare professionals in Minnesota comprise the first year cohorts this fall in the Twin Cities and Duluth.

“Our goal is to support adopted children and their families – and those yet to adopt – so they remain together forever,” Jesson says. “This training can help reduce adoption disruptions and dissolutions so families will not only survive, but thrive.”

Representatives from the North American Council on Adoptable Children will also attend the news conference.

The Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare is part of the School of Social Work within the university’s College of Education and Human Development.