Adoptive parents credit Raise the Future training with "making our family, a family"

Last year, 713 children and youth were adopted out of foster care. Those young people are more likely to go to college, get a well paying job, and have proper health care.

When Melanie & Layne decided to complete their family through adoption, they found their daughter on the Raise the Future website.

"Once we met her, on that very first day, we knew," Melanie said.

"I think I told her, 'We just met our daughter.' Layne said.

"Yea, that was pretty cool, wasn't it?" Melanie replied to Layne.

Their daughter had spent 10-years in foster care. Settling into family life wasn't always easy.

"TBRI is huge," Melanie explained.

TBRI is trust-based relational interventions, a set of principles that help parents understand and care for children who've experienced trauma. Raise the Future are experts at teaching TBRI. Melanie and Layne took the classes, and got some in-home coaching to help them implement the principles. The support services helped Melanie & Layne communicate with their daughter. It created connection for the family and allowed them to bond.

"We teach about how to get people out of survival mode and how to regulate," said Brooks Kaskela, Director of Family Support Services at Raise the Future.

"It really was instrumental in making our family, a family," Melanie told CBS News Colorado.

"Now that you all have been a family for a couple of years, what would you like your daughter to know?" CBS News Colorado's Karen Leigh asked the couple.

"That she is strong, and brave, and smart," Melanie said.

"She's going to make it. She's going to be okay," Layne replied.

"And that, I think, with what she's been through, she can inspire other people because she will have an empathy so real and true that the rest of us may not get," Melanie continued.

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