Vulnerable Children – Missing Mom

Hugh Jackman and Deborra-Lee Furness

I don’t really “follow” celebrities but news that the two are divorcing caught my attention and then further this information – Hugh and Deborra-Lee Jackman are the parents of two children, whom they adopted as young children: Oscar, 23 and Ava, 18. “To be clear, Deb and I always wanted to adopt. So that was always in our plan,” Hugh Jackman told Katie Couric in 2012. Someone in my all things adoption group wrote – “didn’t they hold themselves up on a pedestal as superior (as wealthy 2 parent family) to the biological families of the kids they purchased & promise a better life & ‘forever family’.”

It is said that “After the past few years, the love they had for each other turned more into a friendship which got broken during COVID, as the lockdown didn’t help their marriage at all and really put a strain on their relationship. They worked on it and couldn’t get it back.”

Then, I read this – Deborah Furness is the driving force behind a not for profit adoption advocacy group in Australia called LINK>Adopt Change. Their key argument is to make it quicker and easier to adopt in Australia – they’re trying to make it more like the system in the USA. It’s revolting. They’re trying to campaign government departments to make Australia’s version of Termination of Parental Rights easier – it’s backwards thinking, to aid the stealing babies from poor families in order to give them to rich families. Someone else noted – as much as it’s a very very ‘small mercy’ comparative to the huge traumas they have already experienced in their lives – I am grateful that the children (of Hugh and Deborra-Lee) are both adults.

The Adopt Change website also notes that Deborra-lee is the co-founder of LINK>Hopeland, a US-based platform driving awareness around the issue of vulnerable children. The mission of Hopeland is to ensure children belong in loving families. Hopeland is about family strengthening and community empowerment and driving creative solutions for vulnerable and abandoned children globally. Sounds un-impeachable on the surface.

In discussing this story, one mother who surrendered her child to adoption writes – I was definitely encouraged to give my son a “two parent” family and that is touted in Christian circles as a reason single moms should choose adoption. My son’s adoptive parents divorced. And it turns out that I wasn’t given all the facts when I chose them as my child’s home and family. I’ll grant that she didn’t likely have the word “abuse” in her marriage vocabulary yet – because I was in an abusive marriage and can remember the day my subconscious allowed that word into my mind – but she did already know that the way her husband presented himself to the world was different than the way the family experienced him. And that was something I deserved to know when making such a life changing decision.

I know it happens. This happened with my sister’s choice of adoptive family (it was a private adoption through a lawyer). I think that sometimes adoption is a hoped for cure in a struggling marriage and it doesn’t always bring about that outcome.

I can’t vouch for this method – Trust-Based Relational Intervention – I’m only just learning about it. TBRI is an attachment-based, trauma-informed intervention that is designed to meet the complex needs of vulnerable children. TBRI uses Connecting Principles for attachment needs, Empowering Principles to address physical needs and Correcting Principles to disarm fear-based behaviors.

A question I saw that I could easily have is whether TBRI is somehow religion based. The answer I saw said – TBRI is NOT a faith based approach but one that is solidly grounded in neuroscience and brain based research. It is an evidence-based, trauma-informed model of care for vulnerable children and youth with a theoretical foundation in attachment theory, developmental neuroscience, and developmental trauma.

Dr Karyn Purvis was the Rees-Jones Director and co-founder of the Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth Texas. She was a co-creator of Trust-Based Relational Intervention and the co-author of a best-selling book in the adoption genre, and a passionate and effective advocate for children. She coined the term “children from hard places” to describe the children she loved and served, those who have suffered trauma, abuse, neglect or other adverse conditions early in life. Her research-based philosophy for healing harmed children centered on earning trust and building deep emotional connections to anchor and empower them. On April 12, 2016, Dr. Karyn Purvis passed away at the age of 66.

TBRI involves three principles for working with kids from hard places – Connecting, Empowering, and Correcting. [1] The Connecting Principle asserts that the caregiver must first be mindful about themselves and what they bring to the interactions with their child. Any unresolved issues or triggers the caregiver might have could get in the way of them connecting with their child. [2] The Empowering Principle focuses on meeting the child’s basic needs for food and hydration, as well as meeting their sensory needs, to help the child regulate and to create an ideal environment for connecting and learning. The Empowering Principle also asserts that daily routines, rituals, and preparation for transitions are important to a child’s overall ability to regulate, as well as to build trust and connection with their caregiver. [3] The Correcting Principle aims to address a child’s behavioral issues in a positive way. Two important principles in the correcting component are proactive and responsive behavioral strategies. Proactive strategies focus on putting the child on the right path before they even have a chance step one foot onto the wrong path. Responsive strategies are used to mindfully react to a child’s inappropriate behavior. Two essential responsive strategies are to provide the child with choices and to encourage redo’s.