500 Lithia Pincrest Road
Brandon, FL 33511
Phone: 813-651-3150
Website: www.sylviathomascenter.org

POST-ADOPTION FAMILY SUPPORT PROGRAM

While training can result in healing beginning before issues become extreme, case management services are still needed to oversee and assist with the healing process, especially where finances and insurance are inadequate. The Sylvia Thomas Center provides services that are comprehensive and family-centered. They strive to strengthen the family by focusing on both parents and children.

The Post-Adoption Family Support Program provides case management services to families in crisis or need after adoptions are finalized, a service not available elsewhere. This service prevents adoptions from being dissolved. Most families come to the Sylvia Thomas Center on their own but some are referred by judges in Family and Juvenile Court and the Sheriff’s Department.

Their case managers work with the family to jointly assess needs and formulate a family plan with specific goals the family wants to achieve. Typically, identified needs may include mental health services, legal services, tutoring, school supplies, residential placement services for more intensive treatment, couples counseling for the parents, Medicaid services and sometimes just hand-holding through court hearings, parent-teacher conferences and the filling out of forms. They also review family financial and insurance situations to determine the need for financial assistance.

Once plans are in place, the case managers recommend service providers, link the families with the needed services and arrange for the services to be paid for by ASO funds where necessary.

The Post-Adoption Family Support Program provides families with all the tools and support to thrive as a forever family. This program provides additional services as well. During the holiday season, adopted children are treated to a party and provided gifts generously contributed by donors. Over spring break they provide three days of fun activities for the children – a trip to the movies, the zoo and a park. This offers respite to the parents and assists with childcare issues when parents are employed. They provide life books, similar to scrapbooks, to the children so they can capture memories of both their biological and adoptive families.

While many families enter the Post-Adoption Family Support Program years after finalization, there are families who are receiving services pre-adoption and simply need to continue those services after finalization. The Sylvia Thomas Center works with Camelot Community Care to smooth the transition for these families and avoid the interruption of services.

Once the families achieve their goals and no longer require case management services, the staff encourages families to continue attending support groups.

Other agencies are focused on promoting adoptions or on putting the adoptive families together and having the adoptions finalized. The Sylvia Thomas Center is the only agency in Hillsborough County funded to assist families with adoption issues after finalization. We are the agency charged with putting the “forever” into forever families.