Strong Love Parenting, LLC
Strong Love Parenting (SLP) exists to serve the parents of children who display the symptoms of Reactive Attachment Disorder. This includes training parents who are in the midst of the struggle as well as equipping foster and adoptive parents BEFORE they foster or adopt.
All agencies have some kind of pre-foster/adoption training, but at this point in history it is generally insufficient for the level of needs and challenges that so many fostered & adopted children present. If foster care and adoption were just like “normal parenting”, more people would readily do it. But it’s not. However, with the right training things can go infinitely better!
Neurological challenges are often part of the significant impact of early childhood trauma, so SLP is also a source of HANDLE services for anyone from age 5 to 100 who wants to improve the efficiency of their neurological systems, but particularly for families dealing with RAD.
Additionally, SLP seeks to equip the community to support RAD families in their journey. When it comes to RAD kids, it truly “takes a village”. Many people want to support the cause of “widows and orphans”, and SLP would love to teach you how! However, if you are a community member, please know that SLP’s website material such as the blog is written toward parents. A community members approach to RAD kids is not the same as the parent’s approach. Please join a Circle of Support training to learn about how to best fulfill your specific role with a RAD kid.
SLP’s teaching, material and tools can be helpful to many populations! If you are not a RAD parent, you are welcome here. Just remember that everything is geared specifically toward RAD parents. Many things discussed here are applicable to parenting in general but some are not a good fit, and it is not SLP’s responsibility to delineate which is which.
Heidi Elmore
My experience with early childhood trauma, foster care and adoption first began as a sibling. My sister was fostered by my biological parents and will be the first to tell you that she was a stick of dynamite growing up. She was moved between numerous homes in foster care before coming to us, and it wasn’t all roses after that for our household. Nonetheless, few people have made braver choices, exhibited stronger tenacity and perseverance, or chosen to make such conscious choices about life as my sister did. And now today there is no one in the world of whom I am more proud. I love her deeply. She has a long-time marriage with wonderful kids and an impressive job in management where she receives awards for her service, maintaining all this while also beating cancer. My sister is amazing – refined and strengthened by the fires of her agonizing early years.
I was a Foster Care and Adoption Case Manager/Supervisor from 2008-2012 at an agency where the caseworkers and supervisors are very attentive and involved with every aspect of their clients’ lives. (This is not the case in all agencies/counties.) I worked at a pediatric (ages 4-12) psychiatric residential treatment facility from 2012-2013 where my skills in working with the kids were so noticed that I was asked to teach the other staff. I started teaching families about therapeutic parenting for children with wounded attachment in 2011. Since that time I have worked at attachment-focused family camps, privately coached families and their relatives/community, provided 5 years of both short and long-term therapeutic respite, and taught seminars to psychiatric and school staff. By 2016 I had worked with over 400 traumatized children altogether through various capacities and in numerous settings.
I became a HANDLE screener in 2015 and have worked with over 100 pediatric and adult clients since then.
Education & Certifications
University of London School of Oriental and African Studies (U.K.)
M.S. (International) Development Studies, 2007
Emphasis on children in poverty and non-government agencies
MidAmerica Nazarene University (Olathe, Kansas)
B.A. Psychology, Certificate in Music, 2005
Summa Cum Laude
Certified trainer in “Advanced Parenting”
Families By Design (www.attachment.org)
2011
Certified HANDLE Screener
The HANDLE Institute (www.handle.org)
2015