About ANCHOR Connect
A comprehensive national digital ecosystem for birth parent support.
ANCHOR Connect is a trauma- and adoption-informed digital platform and mobile experience for birth parents who have placed a child for adoption — and for the therapists, clinicians, case managers, peer mentors, support group leaders, and organizations that walk alongside them.
Who ANCHOR Connect serves
One integrated platform, tailored workflows for every role. Each stakeholder page below lists the specific tools, training, and community spaces we've built for that role.
Birth Parents
Support, counseling, peer connection, resources, and healing services.
Therapists/Clinicians
Trauma- and adoption-informed clinical care, referrals, and evaluation instruments.
Case Managers
Participant navigation, service coordination, referrals, and warm hand-offs.
Peer Mentors
Mentor matching, session logs, boundaries, and lived-experience support.
Support Group Leaders
Group setup, curriculum modules, attendance, and facilitator fidelity checks.
Partner Organizations
Agencies, attorneys, hospitals, and child welfare organizations building the field.
What's inside
ANCHOR Connect combines direct service, professional training, evaluation, implementation science, knowledge dissemination, and replication support into a single integrated experience.
Direct support for birth parents
- Find Support
Self-referral, warm-line, and low-barrier entry points.
- Community
Private, moderated online communities organized by healing topic and identity.
- Crisis resources
988, hotlines, and immediate-safety guidance.
- Stories of Healing
Anonymized testimonials from birth parents, mentors, and providers.
Journey framework
- The ROOTS Model
Five domains that shape the birth parent journey.
- Engagement Continuum
Awareness → Discoverability → Contact → Enrollment → Engagement.
Practitioner tools
- Role overview pages
Tailored workflows for each provider role.
- Training & Academy
Six-module facilitator training, peer mentor certification, and CE.
- Resource Library
Handouts, screening tools, protocols, and scripts.
Program Manual & Replication
- Program Manual
Curricula, facilitator qualifications, outreach materials, and lessons learned.
- Replication Hub
Digital Manual Builder assembling Program, Facilitator, Workbook, Outreach, and Evaluation manuals.
- Implementation Science
Adaptation notes, sustainability milestones, and fidelity checks.
Evaluation & Insights
- Evaluation Framework
Mixed-methods data across attendance, outcomes, fidelity, and narratives.
- Dissemination
Publications, webinars, and knowledge-sharing.
- Community Insights
Live aggregate dashboards from Community Pulse surveys.
Community Pulse surveys
- Community Pulse
Role-specific surveys, invitations, reminders, and reports for every stakeholder group.
- Partner Directory
Adoption agencies, attorneys, hospitals, and child welfare organizations.
How it fits together
Every training track, curriculum, tool, and evaluation instrument in ANCHOR Connect is organized around the ROOTS Model — Recognizing loss, Oscillating between grief and living, Owning parent identity, Transforming meaning, and Sustaining lifelong bonds. This shared framework lets birth parents, providers, and partner organizations speak the same language.
As sites implement the model, the Digital Manual Builder assembles Program, Facilitator, Participant Workbook, Outreach, and Evaluation manuals from real evaluation findings — and Community Pulse surveys role-specific questions to every stakeholder group so the model keeps improving.
Our vision
To establish a national, trauma- and adoption-informed support ecosystem that improves birth parent well-being, strengthens services, advances research, and creates a scalable framework for post-adoption support that can be adapted across states, tribes, territories, and communities.
ANCHOR Connect becomes more than a website — it becomes a national birth parent support, workforce development, implementation science, evaluation, and replication ecosystem, organized around the ROOTS Model and capable of producing the evidence, tools, outcomes, and implementation guidance necessary to establish a new standard for post-adoption birth parent support.
Get involved
Whether you're seeking support, delivering it, or building the field, there's a place for you in ANCHOR Connect.