What is it

The family tree is used to create awareness of the importance of a family history for the child, but also for the parents.

It can be done manually, but a software can be helpful to spend more time researching and less time re-drawing.

When is it used

It is used in the first session of the third phase: introduction to the preparation course to intercountry adoption and to the standards for homestudy assessments.
It is also used in session two: exploring adoption family trees and the importance of attachment.
Finally it is an input of stage four: planning the home study.

It will also integrate into the Adoption tree, and thus the Lifebook.

Tips and tricks

Most software found on the internet are very restrictive when it comes to alternative families, especially “pink” families: one of them even warned me that parents can only be of different gender. Also most are projects driven by extreme religious orders gathering genealogical data.

Don’t forget to start with the child and the birth parents, and move on to the adoptive parent(s).

I recommend you first insert the people, use the re-organize button rather than move things manually, and only then add the data about the people (names, dates, etc) and the “ecomap-like” relationships.

Resource

• Download for free, without any catch… up to:  Beta version 13e.
  For more advanced version and professional version: check their archives.
  This application (GenoPro Beta) can use “genograms” to build the family tree. It is very close from the a mix of the family tree and the ecomap… and is the only tool we found allowing same-gender couples and making representing adoption easy.
• Adoption information booklets
• Standard framework