37 Brooke Randolph: Adoption: An Overview of the History, Process and Mental Health Implications

My guest is Brooke Randolph, licensed mental health counselor and founder and director of Counseling at The Green House, in Indianapolis, Indiana. Her specialties are Adoption Therapy & developmental trauma, Brainspotting, and relationships. She is the author of 3 workbooks for kids as well as a contributing author to Adoption Therapy: Perspectives from Clients and Clinicians on Processing and Healing Post-Adoption Issues (2014), and the organizing editor of It’s Not About You: Understanding Adoptee Search, Reunion, & Open Adoption (2017). She was a founding member of MLJ Adoptions, Inc and an Advisory Board member for The Villages. Brooke talks about her personal story with adoption, she gives me a brief history of adoption through the decades in the US, and shares insight on the mental health implications from each perspective in the adoption process.

“If you’re dealing with someone based on your stereotype of them then you’re not going to be able to communicate with them, you’re not going to have a real relationship and nothing really changes.” - Brooke Randolph

Links:

Christie’s Website

Christie’s Instagram: @sasssays

Brooke’s Website

Brooke’s Instagram: @brookerandolphlmhc    

Brooke’s Workbooks & Books

Brooke’s Recommended Reading List

What Not to Say Handout

7 Core Emotional Issues in Adoption

American Baby: A Mother, a Child, and the Shadow History of Adoption by Gabrielle Glaser

The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade by Ann Fessler

Help for Billy: A Beyond Consequences Approach to Helping Challenging Children in the Classroom by Heather T. Forbes

Attachment and Trauma Network