Giving today will help us expand our staff and bring LoveMoves.Us’ impact to new areas, serving more children and
​more families.

• More children being loved on and learning new developmental skills.
• More parents learning the best ways to care for their kids, and themselves.
• More fun and encouraging events to provide a supportive community.

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“Thank you for pouring into our family, for supporting us in the best way you can. Thank you for helping us to change these children's lives as they change ours.” ~ Jess




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Rich and Elizabeth attended our 9-week Cultivate Connection parenting class from January through March.  In this class they learned principles and strategies to help their son build trust, feel safe and to foster connection.​

If you are a parent who decided to foster or adopt a child, you are part of my tribe of favorite people. Because of your decision to care for a child who isn’t biologically yours, you face a lot of unique challenges. 

That's why LoveMoves.Us exists. 

Family Gatherings provide you with community, encouragement, and support. They offer shared experience, and provide guidance and tools to help you with your parenting. 

But there is one critical aspect that tends to get overlooked. Family Gatherings aren’t just for you. 

They’re not just for when you are in crisis. 
They’re not just for when you need help. 
They’re not just for finding community.

Don’t underestimate the impact of Family Gatherings on your children's well-being.

I recently spoke with a transracial adoptee who received her doctorate in anthropology and has used her experience and voice to help other parents and organizations understand the adoptee perspective. She offers insight and consults on how we can be better parents to adoptees. 

She told me that Family Gatherings are vital for children who have been in foster care or were adopted. Here's why:

1. Attachment and Trust: Changes in caregivers and environments can disrupt a child's ability to form secure attachments. This is true for many children who were adopted at birth also. This can lead to difficulties in trusting others, forming healthy relationships, and regulating emotions. Family Gatherings offer a safe community that teaches parents how to form attachment with their children to build trust, and teaches children how to regulate their emotions. 
2. Identity and Self-Esteem: Growing up in a non-traditional family, many children wrestle with their identity impacting their self-esteem. At Family Gatherings, children find friends, see families like theirs, other kids of the same ethnicity, and others who are adopted or in foster care, assuring them they are not the only ones. When they are able to build a strong sense of identity, it builds their self-esteem.
3. Emotional Support and Behavioral Struggles: The trauma of being removed from their biological families and experiencing struggles with identity, loss, and trauma can lead to emotional and behavioral challenges. Children might exhibit anger, anxiety, depression, or exhibit acting-out behaviors because they haven’t learned how to get their needs met in healthy, positive ways. Getting the right tools as a parent, normalizing your child’s experience, and teaching them ways to regulate their emotions helps to ease behavioral issues. When they learn that a safe adult will meet their needs, behaviors start to lessen.
4. Loss and Grief: Children who are adopted or in foster care often feel a strong sense of loss, not only of their biological families but also of relationships, familiar surroundings, and routines. This ongoing sense of loss and grief can impact their emotional well-being. Finding a community of others who experience these things normalizes their experience. This becomes increasingly important as the child gets older - particularly around ages 11-14.
5. Normalization and Belonging: Growing up in non-traditional family settings, many children question their identity and sense of belonging. By attending Family Gatherings, you contribute to creating a sense of normalcy for your children. As you gain insights into strategies that work, children witness the unity and strength within the community, which reassures them that they are not alone on this journey. 

Being a part of Family Gatherings is a strong support for parents. But Family Gatherings help children foster a strong sense of identity, normalize their experience, and help them cope with grief and loss in healthy ways. 

By participating in Family Gatherings, you demonstrate your commitment to the holistic well-being of your families…and you just might encourage or help another family even when you don’t feel like you need the support. 

Your journey of foster and adoptive parenting is one that requires trauma-informed, attachment-based, patient, empathetic, almost-therapeutic parenting; and being a part of a community that encourages you in this helps you and your children all the more.

If you haven't been a part of LoveMoves.Us Family Gatherings, I encourage you to check one out, or start one in your area. Your active involvement will undoubtedly play a vital role in shaping brighter futures for our children.

Advocating for our children,

Jason Bentsen

​The last several months have demonstrated the need for families who foster or adopt to find community, encouragement, and support. 
Nearly 130 people have signed up to attend the Family Gathering at just the Joliet location! 
Families need support that comes in the form of practical parenting skills, quality adoption-competent therapy, respite care (babysitting), and a community who understands the unique challenges they face. 
LoveMoves.Us provides the community and parent training families need.

So what's next?

A new therapy program has already been piloted. It began this past November. An adoption-competent therapist who understands complex developmental trauma was contracted to commute to the home of one family to provide weekly therapy for the entire family.
This pilot program was funded $7,400 by one generous donor who understands the complexity of parenting a child who has been adopted and believes in the transformation that can happen when a family has access to quality therapy. 

MORE FAMILIES NEED THIS KIND OF CARE & SUPPORT.

A church in Plainfield gave the gift of a Parents’ Night Out in June.

Every family who was able to attend expressed their gratitude for this wonderful service that provided a break & respite care for them. The children had a great time and expressed their gratitude for the fun they had. They also expressed their sadness when the night was over. 
Getting volunteers for this was no easy task. Volunteers are harder and harder to come by. But the impact you can make & fulfillment you receive from serving a few hours a month is often underestimated.
MORE FAMILIES NEED THIS KIND OF CARE & SUPPORT.
In the past few weeks I’ve personally encountered families who are struggling.

• Joe - a child with severe autism, limited speech and violent rages. 
• Eli - a teenager withdrawing & refusing all meds, therapy, and school. 
• Tina - a pre-teen with ADHD, severe anxiety, complex genetics & below developmental cognitive functioning greatly impacting & limiting her social life.

These kids are precious, wonderful, incredible kids who are battling complex issues and desperately trying to overcome cognitive, emotional, and social struggles.

LoveMoves.Us provides parents with practical tools to help them parent their child in a way that equips them to overcome the challenges they face. 
The way forward is through creating a culture of care, informed on complex developmental trauma, equipped with tools to care for kids that builds trust, drives connection and eliminates fear.
Equipping several parents, social workers & therapists will expand LoveMoves.Us programs, and impact hundreds more families. It’s going to be a big investment, but it will be worth it. 
Will you join in fighting for the hearts of children & equipping their families to flourish?
WILL YOU GIVE TO PROVIDE THE INVESTMENT NEEDED!
Ongoing generosity will provide the training for parents, social workers and therapists to equip and support parents caring for vulnerable children.

Small financial investments will change the lives of children. It will bring welcome relief to a family. It will support equip and encourage parents to give their child what they need. 
Would you give a special gift or become a monthly partner by giving $10 or $20 a month?
You would become part of the army of support - making sure children and families find community, encouragement, and support!

Having a brother and husband who were adopted, she knows the importance of support for adoptees and their families. Unfortunately, she is now separated from her husband, in part, due to unprocessed thoughts and feelings about his adoption.

Giving a generous gift will help to expand LoveMoves.Us into new communities, reaching hundreds more families and impacting thousands of children’s lives!
 
Will you be a part of the #GivingTuesday $35,000 match? Your gift will bring LoveMoves.Us’ community, encouragement, and support to more families like Kim and Dirk’s and the hundreds of families we serve.

Together for children,

​Jason

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"I 1000000% understand why we can't do gatherings
(because of COVID). I knew what they did for me before...
but, now, I REALLY miss them!"
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Josh - Foster/Adoptive Dad

WHAT A YEAR!

You might be looking back on 2020, grateful it’s behind you; but

THERE’S A LOT TO BE GRATEFUL FOR. Can you say “WINNING!!!”?

While we all felt the collective impact of the COVID-19 pandemic with many closures, at-home learning, and more isolation than ever before; it provided a shift for how people like you provided community, encouragement and support through LoveMoves.Us.

Who knew you could look back on 2020 and celebrate shifting programs online?
Going online provided the opportunity to impact families in other states!

Would you have dreamt that this would create the opportunity to focus on new ways to serve and support families who foster or adopt? Providing meals through locally owned restaurants created a win-win scenario to support families and struggling businesses.

Some key highlights from 2020:

• Nearly 100 more families impacted than in 2019.
• Families served in 5 different states!
• More children impacted than ever before!​

Gratefully,
 
Jason Bentsen
Founder & President
T.B.R.I. Practitioner
Empowered To Connect Parent Trainer
 
Your giving puts the smiles on these kids’ faces. When you give this year, you will change the lives of hundreds of children and families.

Thank you for your partnership and support over the last year. Because of you, families who foster and adopt have found a community of understanding, empathy, and familiarity.
 
You have made a HUGE impact on Amy and her family.
 
Amy started attending LoveMoves.Us Family Gatherings about 2 years ago. She and her husband have 8 children through adoption or foster care.
 
“The best decision we ever made was going to the first meeting.”
 
Amy goes on to say, “I know because of LoveMoves.Us that I can always say yes to a placement and be ok. Not only with clothing and baby gear, but just the support. The support of knowing from other moms that you can do this.”
 
In her words, LoveMoves.Us Family Gatherings provide Amy with:

• Peer support
• No agenda
• No one trying to fix it
• A safe place to speak and be heard

 
“Sometimes you just need to talk and it’s hard in the foster care community with confidentiality. Foster care is hard. We’ve had challenging placements. Being a part of this community gives me others to lean on.

It can be isolating. It’s easy to become so wrapped up in the system and lose sight of why you are doing this.  LoveMoves.Us moms have helped me realized who I am.  I’m not just a mom to 8 kids - I’m Amy.  I’ve found myself again."

Amy had been hesitant to let anyone else watch her children because they come from such diverse, traumatic backgrounds. LoveMoves.Us Family Gatherings “opened  [Amy’s] eyes to amazing people” like Katie.
 
Katie volunteers at Family Gatherings to lead the children’s program. She and Amy made a personal connection that Amy says, “built trust, enriched my life and enriched my children’s lives.”
 
Amy said she feels safe with LoveMoves.Us volunteers. So when Katie offered to watch the kids so that she and her husband could have a rare date night out, Amy leaped at the opportunity.
 
Thank you for making this happen. Your support is truly changing lives and providing the opportunity for others to make a difference.
 
“My kids are around amazing supportive people that I wouldn’t have known without LoveMoves.Us - that they may never have had if it were just my husband and I. They’ve had a profound impact on my kids, my husband and myself.”

Thank you. 
Gratefully,

Jason
Founder & President, LoveMoves.Us 
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When you donate to LoveMoves.Us, you impact lots of families just like Amy’s. Thank you.