Building Community Beyond Placement: Enough at the Formed Families Forward Family Picnic

On August 7, 2026, Enough Adoption Foundation was honored to join Formed Families Forward (FFF) as an exhibitor at its annual Summer Family Picnic at Burke Lake Park in Fairfax Station, Virginia.

Despite the heat, humidity, and nearby thunderstorms, nearly 80 family members, community partners, Board members, and volunteers came together for an afternoon centered on community, connection, service, and fun.

For Enough, being there was about more than having a table at a community event. It was an opportunity to listen, connect, share resources, and stand alongside an organization doing important work to support foster, adoptive, and kinship families.

Family Support Doesn't End at Placement

One of the things we appreciate about organizations like Formed Families Forward is the recognition that building a family through adoption, foster care, or kinship care is not the end of the journey.

Families continue to navigate questions, transitions, relationships, identity, education, mental health, and the many everyday experiences that come with raising children and supporting young people.

Community matters in those moments.

FFF's family picnic created space for families to simply be together while also connecting with community organizations and partners. The event included a community service project, a barbecue dinner, activities for children and youth, and opportunities for families to connect with one another.

Those seemingly simple moments can be meaningful. Sometimes support looks like a resource, a conversation, like seeing another family who understand or simply knowing that you are not alone.

Creating Space for Families to Connect

Enough was grateful to be among several organizations and community partners supporting the picnic, including Anthem HealthKeepers Plus, the Northern Post-Adoption Consortium at C.A.S.E., and My Super Vision.

Each organization brings different expertise and resources to the communities they serve.

The needs of formed families are not one-size-fits-all, and meaningful support requires a network of people and organizations working across different areas—from health and mental health to post-adoption support, education, advocacy, and community connection.

For Enough, our role in that ecosystem is rooted in the experiences and needs of adoptees.

We believe adoptees deserve to be empowered, supported, and connected throughout their lives—not only during childhood or at the point of adoption.

Centering Adoptees While Supporting the Whole Family

Enough was founded with a specific focus on empowering adoptees.

Our work centers on three areas:

Adoptee well-being.Helping connect adoptees with information, resources, and supportive spaces that recognize the unique experiences that adoption can bring.

Medical history access.Helping bridge gaps around access to biological and family medical history—information that can be important to an adoptee's understanding of their health and personal history.

Biological search support.Recognizing that searching for biological family can involve emotional, administrative, physical, financial, and practical considerations before, during, and after a search.

At the same time, we recognize that adoptees are part of larger family systems. Supporting adoptees and supporting families are not competing priorities, both matter.

Community Is a Part of the Support

The picnic included something else we believe is important: an opportunity for families to give back.

Families were invited to decorate reusable bags for a local food pantry and create coloring bookmarks for a local school. Children and youth also had opportunities to participate in a magic show and a mini vision-board activity.

These activities created opportunities for connection across generations—not just between organizations and families, but among families themselves.

For Enough, creating community where families can access resources and relationships, professionals can learn from lived experience, advocates can collaborate, and where families can experience moments of joy alongside the harder parts of their journeys – is how the change truly happens.

Enough Is Grateful to Be Part of the Village

We are grateful to Formed Families Forward for creating a space where families could come together, connect with community partners, serve others, and simply enjoy time together.

The work is stronger when we build bridges between organizations, share knowledge and resources, and make room for different perspectives and areas of expertise.

Because ultimately, this is about taking care of people.

We are grateful to be part of the community doing this work.

And we will continue showing up—listening, learning, connecting, and working toward a world where every adoptee and family is empowered, supported, and connected.