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Sneak Peek at Together Called 2019 Breakout Sessions

Only a couple more weeks! Here’s a sneak peek at what we have planned in addition to hearing from Peter Greer of HOPE International and Ross and Staci King.

Preconference Session Friday Afternoon: Better Together

Parenting vulnerable children can often bring relationship problems to the surface. We can blame those issues on our kids, or we can recognize that we need to work through our histories while growing in relationship with our spouse. In this workshop, we will look at the covenant of marriage that God designed, what we bring to the relationship, and why we might be struggling to stay connected spiritually, emotionally, and physically to our spouse. We will discuss how we can collaborate in our parenting, communicate with each other effectively, and address conflict as we parent kids with a trauma history. We’ll be better together when we are living in harmony and headed in the same direction.

About the speakers:
Ryan and Kayla North are experts on childhood trauma and its impact on adults and children. Personally, they spent 10 years as resource parents over which time they cared for 30 different children and adopted 4 who joined their 2 bio kids. They are both TBRI trained practitioners and served as Lead Trainers for Empowered to Connect. They currently lead Tapestry Family Ministry, a nonprofit in Dallas, TX that supports and equips churches and families with tools and resources to wrap around and bring hope and healing to adoptive and foster parents, children, and their families. You can hear them on The Empowered Parent Podcast and read their writing on Empowered to Connect, the Today Show Parenting team, and at One Big Happy Home.

Saturday Afternoon Breakout Sessions:

Holy Devotions: Notes to my Brothers and Sisters

We can approach our relationship with God in a way that looks a lot like how we approach our relationships with the people around us. We know it’s important and wonder if we are doing all we should. We want a how-to manual so we can tick the box and know we did enough. We want to stock our shelves with tools to help us because we need it. Maybe we mistake hard work or service for deep connection. In this session, Kelly will share parts of her own spiritual journey and how she moved forward from devotions motivated by a desire for self-improvement to dynamic times of connection with God that overflow into her connection with others. Come ready to learn and practice a way to engage with God through His word using your head and your heart.
About the speaker:
Kelly Raudenbush, MA cofounded The Sparrow Fund with her husband Mark in 2011. She also is a therapist at the Attachment & Bonding Center of PA specializing in coming alongside foster and adoptive families. Kelly has a particular interest in (a) engaging and empowering parents who are struggling in their attachment to their children, (b) helping parents walk with their children as they process their hard stories, (c) encouraging couples in their pursuit of each other and unity in parenting, and (d) empowering orphanage staff in China to foster connection with children and each other. Mark and Kelly have been married for 20 years this year and have four children, one of whom joined their family through adoption from China as a toddler in 2010. You may want to check out her Instagram where she shares her daily notes to her daughter which are a part of her relational connection both with her daughter and God.

Let’s Start Now: Cultivating a Relationship That Prepares You for Adult Relationships With Your Kids

Do you wonder how you are going to get through the teen years? Can you imagine enjoying your children as adults? Join Jeff and Cheryl in this session as they share their own experiences–successes, failures, and lessons learned as they transitioned their four children to adulthood–as well as a mindset and practical tools to help set the stage today for thriving relationships with your children as they grow into adulthood (however old your children are now).
About the speakers:
Jeff and Cheryl Nitz bring both professional and personal experience as they offer insights, challenges, and encouragement to families whom God has brought together through adoption. Jeff is the Chief Operating Office at Patrick Henry Family Services in Virginia and the former Sr. Vice President of Adoption & Family Services for Bethany Christian Services. Cheryl is an Associate Professor at Liberty University as well as the Founder and Director of the Attachment & Bonding Center of PA, specializing in working with families impacted by adoption, trauma, and attachment challenges. But, Jeff and Cheryl often say their best education has come from being parents to their four kids (two of whom came to the family through adoption) and grandparents to four. Most importantly, Jeff and Cheryl are presenting as fellow sojourners—sharing with other adoptive parents the joys and challenges and lessons learned and deeply committed to fostering a fun, growing, supportive marriage in the midst of chaos.

Nurturing Care

The primary casualty of trauma is the brain. Every other negative outcome is because our brains have been impacted by abuse (physical, emotional, sexual), neglect (physical, emotional), and other adverse experiences. These experiences cause the brain to get miswired, and it is only through nurturing care, patience, and the presence of a caring, available caregiver that we can change the wiring of the brain and experience profound levels of healing. In this breakout session, Ryan and Kayla North will show parents how to incorporate fun activities that build trust such as feeding, role play, and games into a family nurture group in order to foster better connection and begin to rewire the brain for healing.
About the speakers:
Ryan and Kayla North are experts on childhood trauma and its impact on adults and children. Personally, they spent 10 years as resource parents over which time they cared for 30 different children and adopted 4 who joined their 2 bio kids. They are both TBRI trained practitioners and served as Lead Trainers for Empowered to Connect. They currently lead Tapestry Family Ministry, a nonprofit in Dallas, TX that supports and equips churches and families with tools and resources to wrap around and bring hope and healing to adoptive and foster parents, children, and their families. You can hear them on The Empowered Parent Podcast and read their writing on Empowered to Connect, the Today Show Parenting team, and at One Big Happy Home.

Sensory Processing: What You as Parents Need to Know

We have 8 senses to learn and grow. You may know the “Big 5”–taste, smell, hearing, touch, and sight. But, we also have proprioception, vestibular, and interoception senses to make sense of our own bodies and the world we live in. All children can have challenges processing the breadth of messages they take in through those 8 senses. And, it can be very hard for us as parents to differentiate what is a behavioral issue and what is a sensory processing issue. In this session, Jamie will teach us how to understand our sensory systems, how to integrate sensory rich activities into everyday life in a way that works for your family, and how trauma may impact all of it.
About the speaker:
Jamie Wilkins is an accomplished Occupational Therapist specializing in pediatric care across multiple settings. Her clinical expertise is focused on children and adolescents with autism and sensory integration. She loves to share knowledge to her community and teach other therapists in classroom settings nationally. She earned her Master’s degree in Occupational Therapy from West Virginia University. She currently lives in Texas with her husband, 3 children, and black lab.

Teaching Our Kids About Sex…Without Passing Out

When it comes to teaching your kids, whether biological, adopted, or fostered about sex, there is no one more qualified than you. That’s right–you! But, most of us feel ill-equipped, awkward, maybe even terrified. The voices in our head ask, “When? Where? How?” And we beg, “Oh please, Jesus, may this cup pass from us?” In this breakout, together, we will explore the when, where, and how, which will equip us to move through the awkward and empower us to have courageous conversations with our kids . . . without passing out. Course requirements: An open heart and a sense of humor.
About the speaker:
Carolyn Ruch is an author, speaker, child advocate, and founder of the Rise and Shine Movement. But, her role as mother to seven children (three biological, one adopted, and three foster) is where she’s had her most joyous successes and her most painful failures. Carolyn enjoys serving as God calls from 30 years of parenting and over a decade of prevention training. She joins parents in the trenches as she seeks to equip and empower parents to protect and guard their children.

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Growing the Giving on Giving Tuesday 2018

Big dreams and plans call for big goals. Our team put heads and hearts together and set a funding goal of $20,000 this Giving Tuesday with one-third going to Sparrow Services grants, one-third going to training, and one-third going to operating costs.

Seven special donors put their hearts together too and decided to open their pockets up wide to help us get there. These donors want to grow the giving by working together to match every dollar donated to The Sparrow Fund up to $10,000. What that means is that your Giving Tuesday donation will be multiplied right from the start, do twice the good, have double the impact!

We also want to give to you. We aren’t trying to convince you to give to us or pay you back in some way for donating. We just want you to know how grateful we are for you, the people who help us keep helping. And, very simply put, we love giving.

Our token of thanks for every Giving Tuesday giver of $50 or more

Your Giving Tuesday donation of $50 or more will be matched dollar-for-dollar and we’ll send you a printable set of Advent Story Cards created by the women behind Color + Kindness and Gather & Grow. These 25 cards will help you engage your little ones in a meaningful and manageable Christmas countdown, sharing big Bible moments that tell God’s story of why and how Jesus came on the very first Christmas.

Our token of thanks for every Giving Tuesday giver of $100 or more

Your Giving Tuesday donation of $100 or more will be matched dollar-for-dollar and we’ll send you one of our favorite things–a 2019 calendar created by our friend Rachel at Minipress with a hand-lettered Bible verse for every month. At the end of the year, trim each page for 12 6×6 art prints of Hebrews 11:1, Psalm 136:1b, Micah 6:8, Philippians 1:21, Joshua 1:9, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, Psalm 37:4, Romans 8:37, Proverbs 3:5, Esther 4:14, Isaiah 43:1, and Proverbs 31:25.

Giving Tuesday is not until…well, Tuesday…but it’s not too early to get in on the goodness. Eat turkey. Eat leftover turkey. And, give whenever you want to give by clicking HERE and selecting “Giving Tuesday” in the dropdown list.

UPDATE

Click HERE to see what happened on Giving Tuesday 2018!

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Books for your bookshelf

We’re happy to have this new title on The Sparrow Fund’s shelves. In sing songy rhyme, God Made Me and You starts in a Bible-class classroom in Grace Christian School where teasing leads to tears. With crisp and bright illustrations, the book walks through how the teacher explains a diverse creation that all came together with the crown jewel of God’s hand–man and woman. Differences are magnified and celebrated with word (“what some call ethnicity and others call race, we should celebrate as a gift of God’s grace.”) and illustrations that include what looks to be a transracial couple with the man in a wheelchair, a child with a facial birthmark, one with dark glasses seemingly blind, a child with hearing aids and braces on teeth and on legs. The author explains that because of the “presence of sin, people hate for silly things like color of skin.”

The author doesn’t leave us there. He explains that God already had a solution in mind and sent Jesus to die for the sins of mankind, a solution that means that one day we’ll “no longer view our distinctions as odd, but rather, more reasons to give praise to God.”

Of note:

  • The child teased in the beginning didn’t want to speak up when the teacher asks him why he’s crying, so a classmate gives the teacher the lowdown. This could be used as an opportunity to talk with your kids about how they respond to helpers when they have big feelings.
  • When the teacher hears what happens, the first thing she does is tell the two boys who teased to ask for forgiveness. Then, she reminds the students of the classroom rules and tells them it’s a privilege to attend that school and that they will be expelled if they cannot keep the rule to respect all God’s creatures. We aren’t fans of enforcing asking for forgiveness before inviting some reconciliation, nor are we fans of threatening to send children away if they cannot keep the rules. Use her response as an opportunity to talk about what she may have been feeling and why she may have responded the way she did.
  • At the end of the book, the author included a full spread entitled “Six Ways to Help Your Child Appreciate God’s Design for Ethnic Diversity.” This spread alone is worthwhile. We love his list and the way he explains each point.

Who says board books are only for babies? This one called Wiggles is good for kids right up to middle school and maybe beyond that. With a manageable size and strong pages that have die-cut out tracks throughout, we have found this title a neat one to use with a child and a parent in the context of attachment work. A parent can hold one side and a child the other. They can each take their own finger and trace the track on their page as the words direct (fast, slow, hip hopping, etc.). Our favorite part may be when the finger on the left meets the finger coming from the right and they get to kiss in the middle. It invites connection and creativity between parent and child (can you try it with child guiding mama’s hands? how about child guiding one hand of Mom and one hand of Dad?). And, you know, we’re all for tools that invites smiling and fun.

Emma’s Yucky Brother isn’t a new title, but it’s one we’re glad to have recently added to our shelf. It tells the story of Emma and her expectations of becoming a big sister to 4-year-old Max who her family is adopting. She’s sure he won’t be a pest like some little brothers are and that he’ll be little and sweet. She’s surprised when he’s bigger than he looked in his picture, when he doesn’t smile so much, when he calls her cookies yucky, when he doesn’t acknowledge a gift she gave him which she bought with her own money, and when he wants to play with other kids more than her. Her understanding and heart for him grows when she sees him grieving for his foster mom, and she decides she’s in (“Max sure is a pest, but he is the best pest ever.”). But being in doesn’t mean it’s easy. He calls her yucky and says he doesn’t need a sister. She’s mad–of course, she’s mad. But, her heart grows when she finds him crying under his bed. But, she gets mad again when he breaks her special doll, and she tells him to get lost. And, he does. Her heart grows again when she finds him crying again, and she tells him to ask her for help next time he breaks something, “that’s what sisters are for.” We love this book for normalizing all the big feelings that can come with older child adoption for children already in the home and for helping the whole family understand how sad can look like mad and how we can show love even when it’s hard.

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Resources for Educators

When we say we are all about caring for caregivers that includes teachers. After our workshops Trauma Matters: What You Need to Know to Best Come Alongside ALL Your Students and Their Families and Beyond the Family Tree: Partnering with Foster and Adoptive Families at the MidAtlantic Christian School Association’s conference, we sent this list of resources and links onto workshop attendees and decided to share it here publicly as well. Not every educator can make it to workshops; we get that. There’s a lot out there beyond workshops to help professionals navigate caring for children with hard starts and their families. Click away.

GENERAL RESOURCES RELEVANT TO EDUCATORS

Adoption Basics for Teachers
Published by the Iowa Foster and Adoptive Parents Association, this 20+ page PDF guide goes over children’s typical developmental understandings of adoption, tips for educators to come alongside children, possibly troubling curriculum to consider, and lists of resources.

Creating Trauma-Informed Classrooms by Call, Purvis, Parris, & Cross
This 10-page PDF shared by the National Council for Adoption is a great resource to share with colleagues, giving an overview of the impact of trauma, risk factors, understanding how fear comes into play and how connection with parents and with caregivers like teachers is critical. It also includes a bullet-point list of trauma-informed care strategies that are good starting points and points for conversation between teachers and between teachers and parents.

Dear Teacher by Robyn Gobbel
Written by a therapist specializing in developmental trauma and attachment, this 10-page PDF is a good resource for a team of teachers to read and dig into together which both explains some things and gives some practical tools to help.

Empowered to Connect
The Empowered to Connect ministry and resources are based on TBRI (trust-based relational intervention) originally developed by Karyn Purvis and her team. Empowered to Connect’s website provides lots of articles and informative videos to give parents and professionals serving children who have had hard starts a holistic understanding of their children’s needs and development while empowering them with tools and strategies to effectively meet those needs, build trust, and help children heal and grow.

Flexible Mind/Rigid Mind classroom poster/bookmark graphic from Plant Love Grow
A very helpful graphic from the very helpful website Plant Love Grow that could be used in a classroom to help children pause and pay attention to what’s going on in themselves that may create conflict internally and with others. Check out their website for many more free tools.

Generation Mindful
Created by a PT, parent educator, and mother of four (that’s one lady!), Generation Mindful creates tools and toys that nurture emotional intelligence by connecting caregivers with children playfully. We’re big fans of their posters and Snugglebuddies.

How Childhood Trauma Affects Health Across a Lifetime
In this 16-minute TED talk, pediatrician Nadine Burke Harris explains that the repeated stress of abuse, neglect and parents struggling with mental health or substance abuse issues has real, tangible effects on the development of the brain. This is a helpful introductory link to share with people who may wonder if early trauma really matters long term.

How to Help a Traumatized Child in the Classroom by Joyce Dorado and Vicky Zakrzewski
This is a short, readable article that shares the impact of trauma and introduces a few proactive strategies to help that include noticing triggers and responding with compassion, providing calm and predictable transitions, consider what you are saying publicly and privately, promote mindfulness, and take care of yourself. Look to other resources like The Connected Child and Empowered to Connect for helpful reactive strategies.

How to Support Stressed Out Teachers by Joyce Dorado and Vicky Zakrzewski
Another short, readable article that introduces vicarious or secondary trauma (simply put, when caregivers experience their own trauma as they care for those who have experienced trauma). The authors suggest a few proactive strategies for caring for caregivers including cultivating connections and community, offering wellness groups, and taking opportunities for wellness practices at regular staff meetings.

Kimochis Mixed Bag of Feelings
These little emoji-like pillows are a bit of an investment but a tool we use in so many different ways with children and families to help people identify and express feelings and promote connection. There are resources available from the company to help educators and clinicians creatively use these little guys in individual and group settings.

Lead Teacher website
Lindsay Mangold, Phoenixville teacher who taught TSF founders’ Mark and Kelly’s youngest daughter, launched a website Fall 2018 where she shares resources and tools for social/emotional education that are helpful for kids from hard starts as well as all students as they promote self-regulation and connection. One of our personal favorite exercises she describes is the High Five, a daily practice with a class that creates a culture of acceptance and promotes that feelings are mentionable and manageable. She also offers a great lesson plan on understanding the amygdala and understanding anger.

Morningside Center website
Morningside is an organization that works with educators to build students’ social and emotional skills, promote community, and encourage restorative practices and brave conversations on race. They provide articles and online resources that dig deep into current events and reflect on stories in a way that engages students and caregivers alike to identify and express feelings about complex issues.

Teaching Restorative Practices With Classroom Circles by Amos Clifford
60+ page PDF available for free from the Center for Restorative Process that explains how using intentional classroom circles can help develop community and a restorative culture in the classroom for handling conflict.

BOOK TITLES RELEVANT TO EDUCATORS

Anatomy of the Soul by Curt Thompson
We can only walk with our children to places we’re willing to go ourselves. In this book, Curt Thompson integrates neuroscience and attachment with Gospel Truth, revealing how it is possible for us to rewire our own minds, altering our brain patterns and literally making us more like the men and women God wants us to be. Explaining the brain in layman’s terms, he shows how we can be mentally transformed through spiritual practices, interaction with Scripture, and connections with other people.

The Connected Child by Karyn Purvis
Often required reading for prospective adoptive parents, this book explains what trauma looks like, how it affects our children, and strategies that help in an easy-to-read format. The basic strategies presented in our Trauma Matters session and others are explained in this text.

Different by Sally Clarkson
Choosing to shut out the voices of the world that said her son was “bad,” “broken,” and in need of fixing, Clarkson shares how she moved to trust that her biological son’s differences could be part of an intentional design by a loving Creator. Appropriate for any parent or educator working with an outside-the-box child whether they are living with their biological parents, a foster family, or adoptive family.

Help for Billy by Heather Forbes
Using tables, outlines, and lists for quick reference and readability, Forbes provides guidelines and specific ways for teachers and parents to navigate challenging symptoms of developmental trauma that evidence themselves in learning and in the school context in general.

No Drama Discipline by Dan Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson
Highlighting the link between a child’s neurological development and the way a parent reacts to misbehavior, No Drama Discipline provides an effective, compassionate road map for parents as they deal with tantrums, tensions, and tears. Defining discipline to be more about instruction than punishment, the authors explain how parents and caregivers can seek to reach a child, redirect emotions, and turn a meltdown into an opportunity for growth.

Nurturing Adoptions by Deborah Gray
Written for professionals, Gray explains how neglect, trauma, and prenatal exposure to drugs or alcohol affect brain and emotional development and how to recognize these effects and attachment challenges in children. She also provides ways to help children settle into new families and home and school approaches that encourage children to flourish.

Soul of Shame by Curt Thompson
This is a compelling, easily readable book that we recommend to foster and adoptive parents to help them identify and navigate what they bring to the table. Thompson provides theological and practical tools necessary to dismantle the shame that binds us and helps us identify our own broken places and find freedom from lifelong negative messages.

Teaching the Hurt Child: Relationships Between Trauma, Attachment and Learning by Andrea Chatwin
Published by a Canadian organization committed to supporting adoptive families and professionals serving them, this 40-page manual is based on a popular workshop they offer for educators and gives foundational information about trauma and the developing brain as well as strategies to help educators navigate typically challenging behaviors for children with hard starts.

CHILDREN’S TITLES RELEVANT TO EDUCATION

Captain Snout and the Superpower Questions by Daniel Amen
This is a fun children’s book that helps kids (and their grownups) identify automatic negative thinking patterns and combat them so that our kids are better able to respond to challenges with truth.

Decibella and Her 6-Inch Voice by Julia Cook
Published by Boys Town Press, this book is about a girl named Isabella whose voice volume needs some tweaking. The book teaches five volumes of voice and when to use them.

Foster Care: One Dog’s Story of Change by Julia Cook
Written in engaging prose, this book tells the story of a little guy going into foster care for the first time and his fears and feelings. Appropriate for children who have experienced foster care and to help other children better understand it.

Glad Monster, Sad Monster: A Book About Feelings by Ed Emberley and Anne Miranda
A classic book that puts colors and experiences with feelings, normalizing both positive and negative feelings and opening up conversation about what makes us feel different feelings. Includes on every spread a removable mask that expresses the feeling that you could use in a classroom and open discussion about how we show our different feelings.

I Just Don’t Like the Sound of No by Julia Cook
Published by Boys Town Press, this book is about a boy named RJ who tries to change his parents’ and teachers NOs into Maybes or Yeses. It’s a good resource for helping kids learn how to accept NO and disagree appropriately.

In My Heart by Jo Witek
We like how this book normalizes feelings and gives verbiage around what different feelings physically feel like, giving us a resource to use to help kids learn to be in tune to their own bodies and learn to self-regulate. The book itself is a good size with hard pages and a die-cut heart on each page which is fun and engaging.

Mouse Was Mad by Linda Urban
Fun book about what mad can look like for different people and what works to help us regulate when we have big feelings.

My Many Colored Days by Dr. Seuss
A Dr. Suess classic, this book uses strictly colors to identify different feelings which could help kids who have trouble articulating some of the bigger emotions to translate them into less threatening, creative verbiage. In addition to lending itself to lots of creative classroom activities, the book could be used to create a shared language of feelings in your classroom that parents who struggle with this specifically could use at home.

Silly Limbic: A Tail of Bravery by Naomi Harvey
Written about a little boy and his invisible dog friend named Limbic, this book helps kids to understand the limbic system of their brain and how they handle stress.

Star of the Week by Darlene Friedman
Tells the story of how a kindergarten girl adopted from China navigates a challenging assignment to be star of the week and tell her class all about herself. The book insightfully shares different things the assignment brings up for her and how she navigates the project.

The Elephant With Small Ears, The Redo Roo, The Penguin and the Fine Looking Fish, It’s Tough to be Gentle, Doggie Doesn’t Know No, Baby Owl Lost Her Whoo by Cindy R. Lee
While the illustrations in these books by Cindy R. Lee are not our favorites, the series does give parents and educators stories that correspond with Karyn Purvis’ TBRI (trust-based relational intervention) strategies described in The Connected Child and presented in part in the Trauma Matters session.

The Way I Feel by Janan Cain
Going through all sorts of different feelings (silly, scared, happy, sad, frustrated, shy, bored, jealous, etc.) and what they look like, this book could be used in a group to write feelings artistically to look like the expression of a feeling (they are artistically illustrated in this book) and open up conversation about how we show our feelings with our bodies.

This is Me: A Story of Who We Are & Where We Came From by Jamie Lee Curtis
Written to help kids better understand immigration, this book is all about an elementary class learning about histories and stories and is helpful for kids adopted or not to think about what makes up their story and how to help others better know and understand them.

What Were You Thinking: Learning to Control Your Impulses by Bryan Smith
Published by Boys Town Press, this book is about a 3rd grade boy named Braden who always seems to act fast and get himself into trouble. The book teaches three strategies to help with impulse control (stop what you are doing, think about what you are going to say or do, and decide if it will make the situation better or worse) and ultimately answer the question, “What was I thinking?”

Note:
All Amazon links here are affiliate links and benefit us when you use them,
so click away.

Know of any more resources worth recommending? Let us know so we can add them to our list.

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Won’t You Be My Neighbor? {now available}

 

We see it as the most worthwhile movie of 2018. It’s a documentary. With clips of old black & white footage. And, puppets. Singing puppets. And, it’s amazing. Like life-changing amazing.

Over the course of the 94 minutes of Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, we think you’ll find that you forget that it’s a documentary at all. The real-life stories from people who did life with the man we all knew as Mr. Rogers and the stories from people who feel like they have done life with him will capture your attention, make you smile, make you laugh, and make you cry.

Is it good for your kids? That’s up to you. There are a few swear words—from people other than Mr. Rogers, of course. And, there are some beautiful moments talking about taking risks during big political times and over culturally divisive topics such as homosexuality. We found them to be opportunities for conversation about acceptance and empathy and how each one of us fits into the world and is called to stand up within it.

The DVD is available as of today and is on sale on Amazon now.  Click our affiliate link to order your own copy.

 

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Looks who is coming to Together Called 2019

Since the start, we’ve had speakers for our annual marriage retreat Together Called who God has used in remarkably ways that only He can do to speak the words we really need to hear. I’m not sure why we still feel surprised by it 7 years into this thing.

Not this time.

Together Called may still be 7 months away, but our team is filled with great expectation. We trust you will be too when you hear about who is joining as this time as our keynote speaker and our worship leader.

We have been longtime fans of our keynote speaker Peter Greer. Peter is President and CEO of HOPE International, a global Christ-centered organization strengthening families through job creation throughout Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. Prior to joining HOPE, Peter worked internationally as a microfinance advisor in Cambodia and Zimbabwe, and managing director of Urwego Community Bank in Rwanda. Pretty neat, right? He is a graduate of Messiah College and received a master’s in public policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School, is a well known speaker, and has coauthored over 10 books, including Mission Drift which was been widely acclaimed and selected for an award from Christianity Today. More important than his professional role is his role as husband to Laurel and dad to Keith, Lilianna, and Myles as well as a foster parent.

We’ve also been fans of our worship leaders Ross and Staci King since they joined us at Together Called 2016. Since 1995, Ross has been a full-time working musician. For most of that time, his primary work has been writing music, leading worship, and recording/performing. He currently writes for a publisher called Simpleville Music out of Nashville, TN and is working on a new record that we can’t wait to come out (though we admit that our King favorite is an oldie called Hallelujah for the Cross). He and Staci are parents via adoption to two boys and two girls who we’re hoping inherent the music making biz.

Now aren’t you filled with great expectation too?

Registration for Together Called 2019 will open in early October. Make sure you join our mailing list to be reminded of it. But, we need corporate and/or personal sponsors in place to make it happen. If you own a business and are interested in caring for caregivers with us or want to be a part of supporting foster care and adoption by supporting the moms and dads in it, email us. We’d love to tell you more about why we need you and what sponsoring looks like.

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Mr. Lou has joined the team!

Our team of three has grown by one more—one with four furry feet! After over a year of effort and several months of intensive training with Paws & Affection, a nonprofit in the Philadelphia area that trains and places service, companion, and facility dogs, we have officially launched Project Puppy Love, an attachment-based canine-assisted therapy program for foster and adoptive families, with LOUIE.

Having Louie on our team allows us to serve families in a new, innovative way. We invite children and their parents who find connection to be a challenge to safely connect with him and then transfer those connection skills to each other. He also provides lots of opportunities for us to talk to kiddos and their parents about things like self-control, when it’s right to give and receive affection, letting parents be in charge, and recognizing and expressing our feelings. There’s a pretty neat opportunity even for kids and parents who won’t have the chance to meet him in person—Louie “speaks” on Instagram (@ProjectPuppyLove) about all those same issues and challenges in way that kids from hard starts can relate to and that can invite productive conversations for families. Make sure to follow him there!

Do you believe in Puppy Love? We’re raising $7,000 for the first year to cover the placement fee, training, and start up costs and an estimated $2,000 annually to maintain and grow the impact of Project Puppy Love.

Wanna learn more about it? Email us. Ready to donate? Click the little yellow button below. It’ll take you right to our PayPal. Louie says he’s also open to treats and toys for very strong chewers.  He’s quite gifted in chewing.




The Sparrow Fund is a 501(c)(3) charitable nonprofit organization. All gifts to The Sparrow Fund are tax-deductible as allowed by law. If you would like a copy of our 501(c)(3) ruling letter from the IRS, please contact us; we will be happy to provide you a copy.

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Choosing Hemophilia

One of the first steps in the adoption process is filling out a Medical Needs Checklist, which is a daunting task. Typically, when adoptive families are considering whether they would be able to parent a child with particular needs from such a list, hemophilia jumps out as one of the scarier needs. That make sense. Hemophilia is pretty rare – only about 1 in every 5000 boys are born with this need. That means most of us have gone our entire lives without meeting someone with this condition. Because of that, most of us likely have very little information about this need, or we might even have some misinformation. Before I adopted my son, all the knowledge I had about hemophilia came from my high school world history class in which I learned that hemophilia was “the royal disease” that made people bleed a lot. That was it. Like many people, I assumed that hemophilia meant that a child might “bleed out” from a simple cut or scrape. Thankfully, I was wrong! That couldn’t be further from the truth. I have learned much since my first exposure in high school world history class, because my son has hemophilia. I have the privilege of watching him grow, learn, and joyfully engage with life. He is a typical boy who just happens to have a bleeding disorder. Hemophilia is very manageable, and it’s just a small part of our lives.

So, what is hemophilia, then? Children and adults with hemophilia are missing a protein in their blood that helps the blood to clot. These proteins are called clotting factors. To understand how to care for a child with hemophilia, it helps to know a little about the clotting process. A good analogy for the clotting process is a set of dominoes. Remember how you used to line dominoes up and then tip the first one over to watch them all fall in succession? The clotting process works the same way: there are 13 proteins, called clotting factors, that all work together, in succession, to build a stable clot. But, if one of those proteins (or dominoes) is missing, the clotting process stops prematurely. The most common type of hemophilia, Hemophilia A, occurs when a person is missing Factor VIII (factor 8). This is the kind of hemophilia my son has. Children with hemophilia bleed longer than others, not faster, and they bruise more easily than you and I do. Cuts and scrapes are treated much the same way as for a person with typical clotting. The biggest risks in hemophilia are bleeding internally, such as into joints, muscles, or soft tissues. But, the good news is that hemophilia is very treatable, and these children live happy, healthy, long, joyful lives.

Treatment of hemophilia involves replacing the child’s missing clotting factor. Usually, children receive intravenous (IV) infusions of their missing clotting factor two or three times per week. That may sound daunting, but it takes only a few minutes! We do my son’s infusions before breakfast (his choice) three times per week. Some children receive infusions peripherally (into a vein, like my son), and other children have a port into which their infusions can be given. When my son first came home, we had a wonderful home health nurse who came to do his infusions. After he was home for a couple of years, our Hemophilia Treatment Center trained me to do them myself so that we could treat on our own while traveling or when our nurse wasn’t available. I can’t say enough good things about the supportive care my son receives from the Hemophilia Treatment Center (HTC). They patiently answered my umpteen questions before my son came home, and the whole treatment team (a hemophilia nurse, pediatric hematologist, social worker, physical therapist, and education specialist) continue to be tremendously supportive as he grows. You can check the HTC Directory here to see if there is one near you.

You might be wondering what everyday life looks like for a child with hemophilia. Today, my son went to public school where one of his favorite activities is running on the playground. When he came home, he did several somersaults on the couch (much to my chagrin), and we played basketball outside on our driveway. He runs, jumps, falls, and gets back up again. In other words, he does all the things any other child does. The only activities I (and the HTC) restrict are contact sports like football and hockey. Heading a ball in soccer would be risky, too. (These activities would also be risky for a child without hemophilia!) He knows a lot about his condition, and he is even learning to do his own infusions. We spend just a few minutes per week on infusions, and those don’t happen every day. Otherwise, life looks like what you’d imagine with any child.

If you are thinking about whether to check “hemophilia” on your Medical Needs Checklist, know that it’s a very manageable need. You can read other family stories on the No Hands But Ours site. There is a wonderful, supportive group of families that would be happy to answer questions: just join the Hemophilia Adoption Advocacy Facebook Group. Reach out to your state’s chapter of the National Hemophilia Foundation. You will find that the bleeding disorders community is close knit and incredibly supportive. Finally, reach out to your nearest Hemophilia Treatment Center (HTC) and ask questions! I was fortunate that my HTC even reviewed my son’s file before he came home. They answered every question I had, and I have since discovered that they were right: hemophilia is a manageable need. If I can do this, I’m sure you can, too!

Kelly Cartwright is lead Mentor Mom for Hemophilia with No Hands But Ours, former member of the Board of Directors for the Virginia Hemophilia Foundation, and mom to an amazing boy with hemophilia and an equally amazing daughter. In her day job, Kelly is a professor of psychology and neuroscience, specializing in literacy and human development.

ADVOCATING

A few months away from 7 years old, “Ari” likes riding a bike, living life in tandem with his foster sister, and playing with toy cars. He currently attends kindergarten with his foster sister. Sadly, his birth family likely found themselves unable to care for his medical needs given that he has hemophilia. He needs a family committed to honoring his relationship with his foster sister who is also waiting to be adopted. He’s currently available through Madison, a good agency which is offering a $500 grant to the family who wants to make him their son. Contact info@sparrow-fund.org to learn more about where he is and our experience with him, and contact Sarah at Madison to learn more about him and what the process would look like.

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Sneak Peek at Together Called 2018 Breakout Sessions

In less than 3 weeks now at our 6th annual Together Called retreat, we will hear and learn from Jeffrey and Katherine Reed during the keynote sessions while Philip and Jessica Morlan of Seeds Family Worship lead us in worship. We’ll also be blessed by a number of other people sharing throughout the weekend. Here’s a sneak peek at who will be sharing what!

Friday Pre-Conference: Becoming One by Overcoming Daily Conflicts
We all long for connection and fun and oneness with our spouse. In fact, that was God’s idea too! Even moreso, we have big ideas about the kind of family we want to provide to our children and ways we together want to impact the world. But daily differences and conflicts can nibble away at our sense of connection and common purpose. Join Jeff and Cheryl as they share some of their own journey as adoptive parents and offer practical ideas about how to navigate differences and foster a fun, growing, intimate marriage.

About the speakers:
Jeff and Cheryl Nitz bring both professional and personal experience as they offer insights, challenges, and encouragement to families whom God has brought together through adoption. Jeff is the former Sr. Vice President of Adoption & Family Services for Bethany Christian Services and is currently the Chief Operating Office at Patrick Henry Family Services in Virginia. Cheryl is a therapist and the Director of the Attachment & Bonding Center of PA, specializing in working with families impacted by adoption, trauma, and attachment challenges. She also currently serves as an Associate Professor at Liberty University. But, Jeff and Cheryl often say their best education has come from being parents to their four kids (two of whom came to the family through adoption) and grandparents to four. Most importantly, Jeff and Cheryl are presenting as fellow sojourners—sharing with other adoptive parents the joys and challenges and lessons learned and deeply committed to fostering a fun, growing, supportive marriage in the midst of chaos!

All About Sensory Processing: What You As Parents Need to Know – Christine Achenbach 
The relationship between sensory processing disorders in our children, meaning challenges they have processing sensory messages coming from the environment in a smooth and efficient manner, and attachment is complicated and not completely understood. However, we know children with hard starts are at an increased risk for developing sensory processing disorders. In this session, Christine Achenbach, SPD export, will help guide you to be able to recognize symptoms of SPD in your children, discern when and how to get outside help, and explore potential resources and strategies that work for your family to manage sensory integration challenges.

About the speaker:
Christine Achenbach, MEd, OTR/L, is the academic fieldwork coordinator in the Elizabethtown College Occupational Therapy Department and the sole proprietor of Chris Achenbach’s Therapeutic Services, LLC. She has clinical experience with children and adults and with a variety of diagnoses over her 30 year career. Her specialty is sensory integration /sensory processing disorder. She’s partnered with Bethany Christian Services and ATTACh for parent and professional training. She guides master’s OT students through their graduate projects in the area of SPD and trauma. In 2017, she joined About Child Trauma whose mission is to educate about the impact of trauma in children. Chris is the parent of a grown biological son and has fostered a daughter who had SPD/trauma concerns.

Fostering a Collaborative Partnership With Your Tween/Teen – Sage Windemaker
As parents, we desire and are divinely called to come alongside our children to help them figure out who they are. But, it’s no easy task to strike a balance everyday between providing wise influence and empowering our children to make good choices that are congruent with who they are. In this workshop, Sage will introduce you to the Collaborative & Proactive Solutions approach from Dr. Ross Greene that helps caregivers focus less on modifying kids’ behaviors and more on partnering with kids to solve the problems behind behaviors. This nonadversarial approach allows our children the opportunity to participate in solving the problems that affect their lives and guides us on how to do it in a way that fosters the most desirable human instincts.

About the speaker:
Sage Windemaker is a licensed clinical social worker based in Kennett Square, PA. Her experience includes providing post adoption counseling support to families though Chester County Children Youth and Families, recruiting training and supporting therapeutic foster parents in her role within the therapeutic foster care program at Child and Family Focus, directing the Kennett Square office of The Peacemaker Center, a community-based outpatient mental health center, and now continuing her work with children, couples, and families in private practice. Sage is passionate about working with her clients from a holistic perspective and draws upon a broad range of techniques and therapeutic modalities including trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness-based stress reduction, expressive and play therapies, and therapeutic yoga skills. Sage is also a wife to her husband Dylan and mother to two little girls, Emsley and Ivy.

Walking Alongside: Helping Our Kids Process Their Stories and Ultimately Discover Healing and Forgiveness – Cheryl Nitz
It can be so difficult to talk with children about traumatic events in their history (abandonment, neglect, physical/sexual abuse, parental drug use, sibling loss, disrupted placements). How do we balance tenderness with honesty? How do we minister to them and help them move on? How do we decide what to tell, when, and how much? Come learn tools and principles to help children process emotions and beliefs, develop healthy attachments, and ultimately heal.

About the speaker:
Cheryl Nitz, ACSW, LCSW has worked in the field of adoption and foster care for over 30 years. In 1997, she began specializing in working with families impacted by adoption, trauma, and attachment challenges and is now a therapist and the Director of the Attachment & Bonding Center of PA where she and her staff are committed to joining with parents to help their children find hope and healing through the love and security their families provide. In addition to her
professional experience, she also currently serves as an Associate Professor at Liberty University. However, Cheryl often says her best education has come from being a parent with her husband to their four kids (two of whom came to the family through adoption) and grandparent to four. She presents as a fellow sojourner, sharing with other adoptive parents joys and challenges and lessons learned both in the trenches at the Nitz home and from the families with whom she has had the privilege of working.

Strengthening Your Core: Embracing Your Brokenness as Adoptive/Foster Dads – Jeff Nitz
One of the most difficult aspects of being a dad to kids from hard places is that they can reveal just how broken and helpless we are. As men, we naturally want to fix problems. But, what do we do when we not only can’t fix our kids or our families, but ourselves as well? The counter-intuitive and honest answer is the one that leads us through humility to wholeness and the experience of freedom. In this session, Jeff Nitz will capture some of the key concepts from The Sparrow Fund’s Recharge men’s retreat. For those who didn’t attend, come learn what you missed. If you attended, come for a refresh of Recharge!

About the speaker:
Jeff has spent the past 30 years working in the field of child welfare social work with experience in foster care, residential treatment, foster care adoption, international and domestic infant adoption as well as Safe Families For Children. He is the former Sr. Vice-President of Adoption and Family Services for Bethany Christian Services and is currently Chief Operations Office at Patrick Henry Family Services in Virginia. Jeff has been married for over 30 years to his college sweetheart, Cheryl, and counts her as his very best friend. Together, they are the parents of four adult children ages 24 to 38, two of whom came to the family through adoption. As a licensed clinical social worker, he also enjoys serving with his wife in providing counsel and sharing lessons God has taught them to couples who are struggling in their marriage.

Real Self-Care: Moving Towards Wholly and Holy Living – Kelly Raudenbush
Self-care is more than making sure you schedule a night out with friends. Real self-care involves the work of exploring how your own history impacts who you are today and how you see the world. It involves paying attention to those messages you have playing on repeat in your head and discerning what is good and what is true. In this session just for women, Kelly will share her own journey of real self-care and provide an opportunity for you to either begin your own journey or go deeper in discovering who you are, why that matters, and how God wants to meet you there.

About the speaker:
Kelly Raudenbush, MA cofounded The Sparrow Fund with her husband Mark in 2011. She also is a therapist at the Attachment & Bonding Center of PA specializing in coming alongside foster and adoptive families. Kelly has a particular interest in (a) engaging and empowering parents who are struggling in their attachment to their children, (b) helping parents walk with their children as they process their hard stories, (c) encouraging couples in their pursuit of each other and unity in parenting, and (d) empowering orphanage staff in China to foster connection with children and each other. Mark and Kelly have been married for 20 years this year and have four children, one of whom joined their family through adoption as a toddler in 2010.

Conversations About Homeland Trips
Many families with internationally adopted children have some sort of interest in a homeland or heritage trip back to the place of their child’s birth. But, there is a whole lot to consider before you start planning a trip like this for your child or whole family. Kelly Raudenbush will facilitate an informal panel discussion with Melissa Corkum, adoptive parent and adopted person from Korea; Juliet Ercolano, adopted from China; Ari Anderson, adopted from Latvia, and her mother Tara about the potential value of homeland trips, challenges to consider, and suggestions for ways to prepare your child and family.

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Allow us to introduce you. Meet Sparrow Services Grants.

We started The Sparrow Fund with the specific purpose of encouraging and supporting families in the adventure of adoption. We did that exclusively through a grant program for families adopting internationally that covered their cost to enroll in programs that would give them preadoption support, counsel, and medical reviews of referrals. Those grants allowed us to meet a real need for families who might not get this type of support otherwise.

For nearly 7 years, we’ve been pressing on, continuing that original vision and growing as we’ve been led. We started offering training and connecting opportunities for foster and adoptive families including a marriage retreat Together Called to care for and fill up husbands and wives so that they can keep pouring themselves out and loving well. We also started leading teams to serve in orphanages in China with the primarily goal of building relationships and helping both children and staff more deeply experience relationships.

As our team grew in 2017, it was the right time to pause and ask if all we’re doing is consistent and reflects who we are and where we believe we should be. As we considered the grant program and our retreats and trainings both here and in China, the words caring for caregivers were imprinted on our hearts. That’s what we want to be about. We want to care for caregivers–caregivers who have committed to caring for life and caregivers who stand in the gap for a season. While the 101 grants we gave to families absolutely met a need and did real good for children and families, our team agreed that we could do a better job aligning those grants with the vision of caring for caregivers.

And, that’s how we arrived at our new Sparrow Services grants. We’re still going to help families pay the cost for those programs that will give them access to specialized medical professionals who will review their referral with them. But, we’re going to offer our grant families more than just that. We’re going to walk with them, cheer them on, offer individualized support including but not limited to marriage support, coaching to line up resources they may need once home, personalized suggestions for building attachment. There’s no itemized list of all that Sparrow Services grants will or could include because we don’t want there to be a list; we want to be more personal than that; we want to care for caregivers and help them become the caregivers they are meant to be.

We’ve updated our website and are ready to run with this. Do us a favor and spread the word. Our team and our Board can’t wait to see who we get to serve in 2018.

You can find general Sparrow Services Grant information here >>

You can find answers to frequently asked questions here >>

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