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Resources

Knowledge, training, and practical tools help professionals turn learning into action. The National Center offers adoption competent mental health resources designed to strengthen the workforce, support evidence-informed child-serving systems, and improve outcomes.

Recent Blog Posts

Stay informed about the issues shaping mental health and child welfare. Explore National Center blogs and resources featuring emerging research, promising practices, lived experience perspectives, and practical strategies for strengthening adoption competence. 

Topics include child welfare and mental health collaboration, post-permanency mental health support, trauma-informed support for families, child welfare capacity building, and strategies for improving mental health access for children and families.

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The ACN Workforce Brief

The Adoption Competency Network is dedicated to equipping providers and systems with the knowledge and skills needed to thoughtfully respond to the clinical and relational needs of children and families impacted by child welfare. Through this quarterly newsletter, we’ll share insights, resources, and updates that reflect this mission and the meaningful work happening across our network.

Read the latest newsletter

Recent Webinars

Build knowledge and skills through the National Center webinars designed for child welfare professionals, mental health providers, leaders, parents, advocates, and partners. 

Sessions explore adoption competent mental health training,  cross-system workforce training, trauma-informed child-serving systems, family and youth engagement, and other topics affecting children and families.

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Sustaining Ourselves While Serving Others

Q&A with Laura van Dernoot Lipsky. Designed for child-serving professionals—including social workers, clinicians, health care providers, and educators—this interactive webinar explores how to sustain compassion while navigating trauma exposure, burnout, and moral distress.

In Their Backpack: The Added Weight of Loss & Grief for Students in Adoptive, Foster, Kinship, and Guardianship Families

In this webinar viewers will gain a deeper understanding of how trauma and loss impact students’ emotional regulation, behavior, and academic functioning. You will learn to recognize common school-based manifestations of grief, traumatic stress, and loss, and will leave with practical, permanency-focused, trauma-informed strategies that can be immediately applied to promote safety, connection, emotional processing, and academic success for students in adoptive, foster, kinship, and guardianship families.

Upcoming Events

Find out where the National Center will present, exhibit, and connect with partners nationwide. Conferences offer opportunities to share emerging practices, strengthen professional networks, and advance conversations about adoption competent mental health and child welfare collaboration. 

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CWSE 2026 Official Exhibitor

New England Children’s Behavioral Health Network Conference

Sep. 15, 2026

Meet with the National Center along with national and regional thought leaders to advance solutions for how we can use technology and new models to reimagine behavioral healthcare for children and families across New England.

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Adoption Competent Resources, Right to Your Inbox

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