Hope Connection® 2.0: The effectiveness of a post-adoption family camp intervention for promoting emotional and behavioral health among adopted children

Decades of research demonstrates that experiencing pre-adoption risk and trauma can lead to long-term effects on emotional, behavioral, and sensory processing challenges. Post-adoption services that equip parents with tools to address adopted children’s needs are critical to support healthy development. More specifically, interventions are needed that focus on the adopted child within the family context and incorporate trauma-informed approaches. The current study examines the effectiveness of Hope Connection® 2.0, a therapeutic family post-adoption intervention to improve trauma-related emotional and behavioral issues in adopted children ages 6–12. The camp context included programming for siblings, training and support for parents in Trust-based Relational Intervention® (TBRI®), and was conducted in two segments to allow parents time to practice TBRI at home between sessions. A within-subjects waitlist control design involving 32 adopted children from 18 families was used to examine change prior to and following the intervention. Analysis of variance revealed significant change at 6-months post-intervention. Parents reported decreases in conduct problems and post-traumatic stress (arousal) over time, some reductions in hyperactivity and anger, and decreased sensory processing challenges (i.e., seeking and avoiding behaviors). Findings suggest that Hope Connection 2.0′s emphasis on the entire family shows promise as an effective intervention for reducing emotional and behavioral challenges in adoptive children and provides further evidence for the utility of TBRI in improving outcomes for adopted children.