“Connection with others in today’s world has become challenging, especially given the past three years of a pandemic. For these reasons, it is so welcomed that Celia Center is meeting these needs through its Mighty Network, and very timely as well. Social support networks help individuals achieve much-needed social unity through sharing similar core values and beliefs, as well as by being racially, culturally, and gender/ sexually diverse. Social supports are particularly important for those with adoption and foster care experiences: They help with trust-building and stigma reduction and are fundamental in helping these adoption and foster experiences to become integrated and successful. Celia Center’s Mighty Network will offer a supportive environment that teaches its members that what they’re going through is okay and normal—or at least normal for certain individuals sharing a common experience. For someone who had been relinquished or separated from their family of origin, these social supports can teach them how to fit in - emotionally, psychologically, and even spiritually/relationally - into their families, into society, into the world in general, and into themselves. Knowing one is not alone reducing the stigma of feeling “different than,” and it helps build trust and form safe and long-lasting healthy attachments. I will be both a participant in this community and refer others there for much-needed support”
- David B. Bohl, MA, CSAC, MAC, Relinquished, Adoptee, NPE, Author, Speaker, Addiction and Relinquishment Consultant at Beacon Confidential LLC.
“As a formerly fostered adoptee now experienced in Biological Reunion, Celia Center highlighted my voice to share my story and gave me a platform of support for my personal Adoption Constellation web that is invaluable. I am forever grateful for my chosen family additions, Jeanette Yoffe being one of them.” - Jenni Alpert (Cami) Adoptee
“Hearing the stories of reconciliation from those participating in the Adopt Salon Constellation has been heartening this year.” - Jerri Allyn, First Birth Mother
"The individuals who attend the Celia Center Adopt Salon support meeting have not only allowed me to validate my feelings surrounding my adoptive experience and reunion with my birth family but have helped me to understand the wounds and losses that my adoptive parent may have suffered on some level that she would never speak about. Since graduating from Calstate Los Angeles in Sociology and Social Work 3 years ago, the Celia Center Adopt Salon meetings have provided a forum for which I can better comprehend on a much deeper level, the intricacies of issues surrounding each of the different triad members; birth parent, adoptive parent, and adoptee. My involvement with the meetings has helped make me a much more effective case worker as I continue to develop and work as a Social Worker in grief and loss". - Chris Thomason Adoptee
“We feel so blessed and lucky to be a part of Adopt Salon, for 8 years and counting! Being in a room with all parts of the adoption constellation has raised our consciousness and deepened our understanding of our adopted child's experience. We have been supported when we had questions - how to talk about adoption with our toddler, how to facilitate contact with our child's family of origin, and how to advocate for our child within the school system. We have been surprised, moved, educated, and inspired by hearing adult adoptees and birth parents express their feelings - no way could we have guessed or understood before, but as soon as we heard them, wow, we suddenly had new insight into our child's experience, and ourselves! And we have been given the chance to simply be supportive of others. Adopt Salon has literally been life-changing for our family, a hugely positive force.
- Celia Parker, Adoptive Mother
“As a birth mother, Adopt Salon has provided me with the opportunity to hear the perspectives of both adults who were adopted as children, and parents through adoption, and helped me to understand how adoption has impacted their lives. The opportunity to share and hear the experience of all members of the constellation, in an emotionally safe environment has been invaluable to me in understanding and processing my own experience.”
- Laura Dotson, First Birth Mother