Working with adopted adults in counselling practice – London

Event details

Gain the confidence and skills to provide meaningful therapeutic support to adopted adults through this new two-day in-person training.

Note: This training is for counsellors, mental health and adoption professionals.

The lived experience of adoption is often complex, layered, and deeply personal. This unique and comprehensive two-day training course – delivered by PAC-UK facilitators with lived experience -offers counsellors and mental health professionals a deeper understanding of adoption-related trauma and how to respond to it in therapeutic settings.

Whether you’re new to working with adopted adults or looking to enhance your practice, this course equips you with practical tools, up-to-date research, and real-life insights from those who truly understand.

✔ CPD certificate provided
✔ Led by facilitators with lived experience
✔ In-person delivery at fully accessible venue
✔ Tea/coffee/water provided throughout both days

Please note, lunch is not provided – there are shops nearby and space within the venue for you to sit if you prefer to bring lunch in.

What You’ll Learn – Course Modules:

Day 1:

Module 1: The Background Essentials

1. History of adoption in the UK
2. Current research on adoption and its psychological impact
3. Common presenting issues in therapy
4. Biological and physiological effects of adoption-related trauma

Module 2: The Developing Adoptee

1. The lifelong losses associated with adoption
2. The developing nervous system and the role of early trauma
3. Parenting and attachment styles
4. When trauma is unrecognised or misunderstood

Day 2:

Module 3: The Lifelong Impacts of Adoption

1. Adoption as adaptation
2. Addictions, compulsions, and identity
3. “Being in the fog”: disconnection and dissociation
4. The reunion experience and how the body remembers trauma

Module 4: Modern Adoption and Therapeutic Approaches

1. Changes in adoption practices
2. Best practices for counselling adopted adults
3. How to ‘get in’ – engaging adoptees effectively
4. Somatic work and other therapeutic interventions

Facilitators

Gilli Bruce: Gilli is an integrative therapeutic counsellor and NLP Master Practitioner with lived experience as an adoptee. She brings both professional expertise and personal insight to her work, offering compassionate, client-centred support. Gilli is also actively involved in the adoption community, partnering with ‘Adoptees-in-Alliance’ and ‘How To Be Adopted’ to advocate for adoptee voices and well-being.

Mike Hancock: Mike is an accredited BACP counsellor and National Strategic Lead at PAC-UK. Following his own reunion with his birth family he worked with contemporary birth parents across Yorkshire and subsequently has delivered counselling, access to adoption records, intermediary and group work to adopted adults and birth families for many years. With a previous performing career he has trained nationally around these issues and amplified the different voices in adoption through webinars, films and lived experience reference groups.

Price

You have the option to pay online via PayPal or via invoice if preferred.

£275 plus VAT = £330 (incl. VAT) total per person for the two day training.

Please book using the ticket selector below.