Chronic stress, feelings of helplessness, and isolation affect caregivers’ ability to give quality care to their children. When you add the pressure of being the healthy attachment figure for a child who has experienced early-life trauma, the emotional demands can be overwhelming. Caregivers can easily slide into their own survival behavior and struggle to give compassionate, nurturing, consistent care, a phenomenon called blocked care. In this training, we will discuss blocked care: how it develops, how to best help caregivers overcome it, and how to promote healing for the whole family system.

Dr. Jana Hunsley is the Executive Director of Project 1025 LLC, an organization devoted to equipping and supporting adoptive and foster families, where she offers consulting, training, coaching, and counseling for families and professionals. She is also co-founder of Camp Together, a nonprofit offering therapeutic family camps for families impacted by trauma. Jana received her doctorate in experimental psychology from the Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development at Texas Christian University where her research focused on understanding and meeting the needs of every member of adoptive and foster families through post-adoption supportive services. Over the years, Jana has worked in various clinical settings as a therapist with children and youth who have experienced trauma, including residential treatment, institutional care, schools, child welfare, and juvenile detention. Jana credits her passion for this work to her siblings who were adopted when she was a teenager.