Counseling & Consulting

Adoption — Foster Care — Kinship Care

Mental Health Counseling

“All of us labor in webs spun long before we were born” — William Faulkner

General Information

-Please note- We currently have a waitlist for new clients 13 yrs old or younger.

Counseling at Encompass Adoptees takes a person-centered approach with a focus on interpersonal neurobiology, trauma, and attachment. We work alongside the client/family to start where you are, and create a plan unique to your specific needs. Standard talk therapy or art-based sessions are available and play therapy sessions will be available starting in June 2024. Counseling is available for youth, teens, and adults. Family sessions and parent participation for younger clients are seen as valuable and are encouraged. Encompass Adoptees does not provide services related to medication, crisis, or emergency needs. Sessions are mainly in-person at the Encompass location, but telehealth for adults when beneficial, is also available. Free twenty-minute consultations are available for new clients upon request. For more information or scheduling please call or text Heather at 502-873-6723, or send an email to heather@encompassadoptees.org. Adoptive families can apply for PASSS funding, and sliding scale options are available as needed for adult adoptees, fostered, and kinship clients.

Understanding the Adoptee Perspective - Adoption “Competency”

The perspective of an adoptee/ a person who is relinquished or removed is uniquely influenced by these experiences and these early experiences inevitably affect the formation of our worldview, as well as general ideas of the people and world around us. [Relinquishment is used here to refer to the experience of one’s birth/first parent’s willingly choosing to do something with their future other than parent us, or their inability to choose to parent us, regardless of the reason (disability, drugs, conception circumstances, etc) and regardless of whether this experience is followed by foster care, time in an orphanage, and/or adoption.] These experiences often cause subtle shifts in our perspective, understanding, beliefs, and definitions. Common areas where this can seen include concepts related to boundaries, safety, control, etc.

Very few graduate programs include educational options related to trauma or attachment, and there is even less taught on adoption. Because of this, therapists working with adoptees must educate themselves in other ways to achieve what many people are calling adoption “competency” or becoming an “adoption-competent therapist.” This applies to therapists both with and without lived experiences (as an adopted, fostered or kinship person) because lived experience is not equal to “competency” or a compete knowing of oneself or anyone else. At Encompass Adoptees we do not use this language but advocate for a Continual Learning model that strives for growing expertise, rather than the idea that a single class can offer “competency,” or that a therapist can come to an end of learning all that is necessary. This is especially true when working with those who have experiences related to trauma, relinquishment/removal and/or adoption/foster care because new research, insights, and literature in these areas are continually being published.

Encompass Adoptees offers specialized counseling for adopted, fostered, and kinship (AFK) people, as well as those with similar adverse childhood experiences, and their families, provided by Heather Gonzales LPC, who is also an adult adoptee. The list of recommended books posted on this website is a partial list of resources that have been read in the commitment to continual learning. And we have posted it so that individuals and families can educate themselves, and so clients have a more transparent understanding of the training and education behind the counseling and programs being offered at Encompass Adoptees.

More About Heather Gonzales LPC

As an adult adoptee, I am especially interested in working with non-traditional families (including fellow adoptees, kinship or fostered people, and those who may have lost a parent due to death, divorce, deportation, or other separation), as well as those looking for help parenting children and teens with unique needs. Adoptees and their families frequently fall into this unique needs category— including, but not limited to trauma, grief, adverse childhood experiences, attachment injury, relinquishment/removal, identity, relationship issues, and reunion. I have spent the past seven years working to specialize in serving the adoption community and am dedicated to supporting healthy family relationships and building bridges toward better communication for couples, families, and parent-child dynamics affected by these difficult experiences. I have a strong commitment to self-education, reading and studying extensively on these topics in addition to my formal training, and have used this passion to offer adoption competent counseling. This education is enhanced and guided by my personal lived experience, my own work toward healing, my active participation within the adoption community, and years of listening and supporting other adopted, fostered, and kinshipped people of all ages, as well as their families.

I individualize my sessions to draw on each client’s unique strengths to meet their personal needs, and enjoy using art-based interventions including drawing, collage, metaphor, music, literature or poetry, and various other mediums when possible. I offer an active approach to therapy and use exercises and homework outside of sessions for those who want it. Using my passion for art, education, inclusivity, and teamwork, I strive to find new ways to support the adoptive, foster, and kinship (AFK) community and all the diversity found within it. I value the worth and dignity of all people and am committed to supporting and empowering those whose voices have been marginalized or silenced . I seek to empathically engage with clients and together work toward creating an increased sense of autonomy, empowerment, self-awareness, individual identity, internal validation, personal integration, genuine presence, and peace. Regardless of where you find yourself today, I am ready to partner with anyone ready to grow and work toward change.

Heather has a bachelor’s degree in Art Therapy from Capital University, a Master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Pennsylvania Western University, and additional training from educational workshops and conferences on trauma, attachment, adoption, dissociation, and art therapy.

Consultation on Adoption Issues & Needs

Consultation offers a short term context in which to ask questions and better understand a certain problem, situation , or case

For Parents

• For those considering at what age they should I tell their adoptee child their whole story?

• For those considering- how should I talk about sensitive or traumatic information such as: prostitution, drug addiction, conception by rape, etc?

• For those considering adoption - What are some important things to think through.

• For those trying to figure out what their role, healthy boundaries etc, as their adopted child navigates reunion.

• For those interested in learning how to communicate better with their adopted child.

For Adoptees

• For those who want to talk to someone who has been adopted and who has experienced the hard work that processing this can be

• For those who are trying to navigate reunion

For Agencies, Nonprofits, and. other Mental Health Organizations

• For organizations trying to provide more thoughtful and appropriate services, programs, trainings, or presentations related to the experience of relinquishment and adoption

• For a consult for 1 or more other therapists working with an adoptee/adoptive familiy.

• To refer adoptee clients

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