The idea that your children will be fully launched into adulthood by age 18 has - hopefully - been left by the wayside by now. Even the federal government acknowledges that by extending parental health insurance coverage to age 26.

For those who have been impacted by foster care or adoption, the transition can be quite complicated and take many twists and turns. In this session, caregivers will be challenged to think about growth and maturity in the context of developmental strengths and needs and learn strategies for helping older youth develop the new skills they will need in order to succeed as adults, while ensuring that your relationship is sustained and strengthened.

Presented by Kim Stevens

Kim is recently retired but served as a program manager at North American Council on Adoptable Children (NACAC) 2006-2022. Her work focused on projects that support foster, adoptive, guardianship, and kinship children and families, providing legislative and family advocacy, policy analysis and recommendations, curriculum development, training and capacity building, technical assistance for support and advocacy organizations, and youth empowerment activities.
 
Kim and her husband, Buddy have six children, four of whom were adopted as older children from the public foster care system. They maintain informal parenting relationships with two adults who aged out of the foster care system.