Grounded training and coaching for the lifelong adoption journey.
Adoption is a unique, lifelong journey requiring specialized attention. It is a "both/and" experience- one that includes deep love and profound loss simultaneously.
When your child is navigating the consequences of a trauma, the rest of the world often tells you to just parent harder. But you and I both know standard parenting advice doesn’t work here. Too often, families are left completely on their own, exhausted from trying to find professionals, schools, and communities who truly understand your unique reality.
When trauma triggers big, baffling behaviors, it can feel like your family is a boat being battered by constant, unpredictable waves with no support the storm.
While we cannot stop the storm, Anchored Adoption is here to help your family drop an anchor—giving you the specialized tools, relational neuroscience, and concrete co-regulation strategies you need to steady your ship.
Anchored Compass
Foundational Beliefs that Guide the Work
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It’s not better or worse than other ways of building a family but it is different.
The ways that adoption is unique require special attention.
Each adoptee’s experience and perspective is unique.
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It’s not just one conversation but many with deeper levels of understanding over time.
Adoption’s impact changes over the course of one’s lifespan
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It’s not all good. It’s not all bad. Mixed emotions are a part of the adoption experience, for everyone involved.
Recognizing one’s emotions and naming them helps in healing and growth.
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All adoptions begin with loss. Loss is traumatic at any age. Losses need to be grieved in order to heal.
Changing behavior requires a recognition of the child’s underlying needs
Challenging behaviors can be a form of survival and protection and are often unintentional.
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While an adoptee might be the primary client in therapy, the entire family is affected by an adoption.
All members of the family need to grow and change to successfully integrate an adopted family member.
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Openness with biological family
Openness about your child’s story
Openness around all the mixed-up feelings adoption brings
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Transracial adoptions offer their own complexities that cannot be ignored.
It is adoptive parents’ responsibility to do the work to recognize the impact of race and culture on their own lives and give their children all they need to develop a positive racial identity as they mature.
Anchored Adoption by Erin was founded to provide adoption-competent, trauma-informed guidance to families navigating the lifelong adoption journey.
As an established adoption professional in North Carolina, Erin developed this educational platform to bridge the post-finalization support cliff.
By translating advanced relational neuroscience—including her certification in Robyn Gobbel’s 12-week Raising Kids with Big, Baffling Behaviors curriculum—Erin equips families with the practical, everyday co-regulation blueprints needed to steady their ship.