Our History
Heart to Heart emerged from a desire to provide training, peer support and educational and therapeutic resources for families who have adopted children struggling with attachment, sensory motor deficits, character development and self regulation.
Adoptive parents themselves since 1996, Paul and Joanne say, “As adoptive parents, we found that there were few resources available for families that had adopted children who had experienced serious emotional trauma. It was difficult to find and access members of the medical, mental health, and educational communities that had a clear understanding of the issues our family faced. We also found that we had become increasingly isolated by virtue of the fact that the parenting problems that we faced were not shared by, nor often even understood by the greater parent community.”
In the fall of 2006 utilizing the expertise of therapist and adoptive parent, Carla DeRose, MFT, Heart to Heart was launched as the Sacramento area ambassador for Help One Child, a larger Bay Area faith based non profit organization that supports adoptive/foster/kinship families.
In the fall of 2010 Heart to Heart’s co-founder, Joanne Jelle completed Trust Based Relationship Intervention (TBRI) training at Texas Christian University Institute of Child Development under the direction of Dr. Karyn Purvis and Dr. David Cross, authors of the acclaimed adoptive parenting book,
The Connected Child.
It is our hope to assist adoptive parents acquire the therapeutic parenting skills to help children from hard places heal. We continue to provide opportunity in the greater Sacramento, California area for the adoption community to access research based parenting strategies by bringing nationally recognized special speakers and seminar opportunities to our area.
Previously held seminars have included:
Show Hope's Empowered to Connect Live Simulcast April 10th-11th 2015
Effective Advocating for Services within the Public School System presented by
Area Board 3 September 6th, 2014
Introduction to
TBRI Training one day training for parents July 12th, 2014
Introduction to
TBRI Training one day training for clinicians July 11th, 2014
Both the July 11th and July 12th 2014 Introduction to TBRI trainings were presented by the TCU team from Texas in conjunction with Debra Delulio Jones, M. Ed., Founder and Director of
PACT Parenting Adoptees Can Trust
A Sensory World presented by Robyn Chu, MOT,OTRL May 25th, 2013
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Purpose
Our goal is to support families who have adopted, or are adopting children, with resources and training, as well as provide them with opportunities to build relationships with other adoptive parents facing similar parenting issues. Structured child care at the meetings is provided by trained caregivers free of charge. By providing families with community and training, Heart to Heart strives to encourage these faithful families, prevent adoptions from failing, and most importantly, help children heal.
Heart to Heart, an outreach ministry of Help One Child, is located in Roseville, California on the campus of Valley Springs Presbyterian Church. Heart to Heart’s Parent Child Connection (PCC) is dedicated to the support of adoptive families in the greater Sacramento Area.
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