Adoption Training

The Villages is pleased to announce that we have been awarded a grant from The Center for Adoption Support and Education, to provide Clinical Adoption Competent Adoption Training (TAC) to licensed mental health professionals, providing them with the knowledge skills and values they need to provide adoption competent mental health services.


TAC is a standardized, manualized curriculum developed in collaboration with national experts in the field of child welfare, adoption and mental health and rigorously evaluated at the University of Maryland School of Social Work. A 13-session instruction program (a total of 78 hours of instruction) engages students in clinical knowledge and skill building, followed by monthly group clinical case consultation sessions over a 6-month period.

Topical Areas Include:

• Clinical and Ethical Issues in Planning, Preparing for and Supporting Adoption
• Clinical Issues in Providing Therapeutic Services: Grief, Loss, Separation and Identity
• Trauma and Brain Neurobiology
• Clinical Issues in Providing Therapeutic Services: Attachment
• Adoptive Family Formation, Integration and Developmental Stages
• Openness in Adoption and Birth Family Culture
• Race and Ethnicity

The Villages’ expert trainers, Alfreda Singleton Smith and Jill Budnick, are excited to announce that the first training class is scheduled to begin in February, 2013. There is limited space still available for this training. If you are interested in participating please call Alfreda Singleton Smith or Kimberlee Cottingham at 317-775-6500.