Dr. Atamhi Cawayu was born in Bolivia and adopted to Belgium. In 2023, he earned his PhD in Gender and Diversity Studies from Ghent University. Dr. Cawayu’s academic work centers on childhood and child protection, with specific interests in transnational adoption and the right to live in a family...

Kirsta Bowman, an adopted person well-known on social media for her thoughtful and nuanced videos discussing the adoption landscape, joins us to discuss her research into unethical rehoming practices on social media. Unregulated custody transfer, often referred to as “rehoming,” is the practice o...

While reflecting on her theater piece, Placing Home, which centers birthmother stories, adoptive mother Katy Finn unpacks the powerful role adoptive mothers can play in shifting the pervasive adoption narrative. Katy’s talk centers around three questions: What role does the adoptive mother play i...

Bethany Fraser is a transacially adopted person and host of the podcast, The Adoptee Diaries: Truth, Trust, and Transparency. Bethany always knew she was adopted, but it wasn’t until she did a home DNA kit that she learned some stunning secrets about her origins, including the discovery that she ...

Rachel Boyer, MSW, LMSW, a social worker and transracially adopted person, provides her expertise and insight about trauma-informed and adoption-competent social work practice. She discusses how our society views adoption, identifies the gaps in adoption storytelling, discusses why those gaps hav...

Hope O. Helder, birthmother and author of the critically acclaimed memoir, Finding Hope: A Birthmother's Journey into the Light and Nam Holtz, LMSW, a therapist, transracially adopted person born in Korea, and award-winning documentary filmmaker of Found in Korea, discuss how we can improve outco...

Join us for a conversation that's never been had before in adoption spaces, as Anna Linde, MSc, a transracial adopted person, sexologist, and sexual health specialist, brings a completely new perspective to Activism in Adoption, one that will challenge everything you think you know about adoption...

Adopted person Sara Easterly, birthmother Kelsey Vander Vliet Ranyard, and adoptive mother Lori Holden researched adoption from all sides for their ground-breaking book Adoption Unfiltered: Revelations from Adoptees, Birthparents, Adoptive Parents, and Allies. They interviewed dozens of adopted, ...

Marcella Moslow, LCSW, RPT, is a trauma therapist and a transracially adopted person born in Columbia. Adoptee activism doesn’t always have to be through large scale practices or platforms, it can take the form of becoming educated and advocating for adoptees who face disparities when it comes t...

Sociologist Gretchen Sisson discusses her new book Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood, and her ten years of research on adoption in the United States. How do relinquishing mothers feel about the support and counseling they received (or didn't) during t...

This session explores Sasha Mack’s journey as a Black same-race adopted person. Through her powerful "Black Sheep" art collection, Sasha delves into the complexities of identity, cultural connection, and belonging. She addresses the nuances of same-race adoption in the Black community, navigating...

Adopted people often find themselves caught in a web of different identities, systems, and predicaments, all of which intersect in complex ways that can be very difficult to navigate. Joe Toolan, a transracially adopted person born in Guatemala discusses what those intersectional roots meant for ...

Meggin (Nam) Holtz, LMSW, a transracially adopted person born in Korea, has been involved in adoption advocacy, awareness, and support for a decade. Her award-winning documentary film, Found In Korea 한국에서 발견된 , about birth search, identity, and adoption was created to serve as a point of entry fo...

Dr. Maxine Bryant provides an important and rarely highlighted perspective as a domestic Black adoptee adopted by Black parents during a time when formal adoption in the Black community was rare. Alongside her personal story, Maxine also brings crucial insight into the history of the practice of ...

This session explores transracially adopted person Torie DiMartile's dissertation research on how racial identity and family belonging is created and understood by Black adult transracial adopted people. Drawing from interviews with dozens of adult adopted people, along with her own experiences i...

Transracially adopted person Isaac Etter is an activist, racial bias consultant, and social entrepreneur, and the founder of Identity, where the focus is on re-imaging post-placement support for adoptive and foster families. He is also the founder of the podcast Inside Transracial Adoption, which...

Author and transracially adopted person Kevin Hofmann was born into the racially-charged Detroit of 1967 to a white mother and a Black father, placed into foster care, and then adopted by a white minister and his wife, who were also the parents of three biological children. Hofmann’s talk is base...

Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum, President Emerita of Spelman College and author of the best-selling and critically acclaimed book Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations about Race, guides us in a discussion that explores what it really means to be a parent...

Cordan James, Executive Director of Fathering Together and a transracially adopted person, is a social entrepreneur whose work focuses on education and empowerment. He rose from adversity to become a leading motivational speaker and youth/family mentor, guiding children and adults through exerci...

TreeHouse Health’s President & Clinical Director Billy Kaplan, LCSW, discusses the critical importance of providing adopted children therapeutic parenting through an attachment-focused, trauma-informed lens, but with a reminder to parents that nobody benefits when parents don’t also take care of ...

Dr. Liz DeBetta is an adopted person and the author of Migrating Toward Wholeness: Adult Adoptees and Writing to Heal. Dr. DeBetta also is performer of the award-winning solo show
Un-M-Othered: A Story of Adoption & Patriarchy. She is an interdisciplinary scholar-artist-activist who is committed...

Clemencia Deleon, a birthmother who placed her child in a kinship adoption, unpacks the complexity of kinship adoption, and the importance of honesty and emotional intelligence in navigating this form of adoption. There are a lot of obvious benefits built in to kinship adoption: the adopted child...

Speaker, birthmother, and author of the memoir Finding Hope: A Birthmother’s Journey into the Light, Hope O. Helder talks about building resilience and learning to thrive despite the circumstances life throws you. In conversation with moderator, advice columnist, and birthmother Liz Pryor, author...

Birthparent Cathy Crossno tells the story of how she came to place her daughter for adoption, and how she was able to build a strong relationship with both her daughter and her daughter's adoptive parents. Cathy acknowledges the complexities of relationships within the adoption triad, while highl...

Nearly all adoption education focuses on adopting a baby, but does not address what happens as their baby grows into a teen, and then an adult. The tools and information you may need to bring an adopted child into your home aren’t the same tools you may need as they grow into adulthood. We hear ...

In the adoption community, the phrase 'adoptive parents' is often code for 'adoptive moms,' and it's rare to hear from fathers at all, either birthfathers or adoptive dads, but a healthy open adoption requires the work to create and maintain it be done by both adoptive parents. Communication and ...

Creating a healthy open adoption relationships is something that birthparents and adoptive parents need to do together to create more positive adoption outcomes, not just for their children but also for themselves. But nobody talks about how to do it. Until now. Join Maryellen Kandu (birthmother)...

Adoption is widely assumed in our culture to be a win for everyone involved. However, there is a growing community of adult adopted people, first parents, and adoptive families speaking up about the trauma of relinquishment and the associated lifelong mental health issues. In this session, Candac...

In this panel discussion, we are joined by three birthmothers: Marcia Lane-McGee, author and co-host of the podcast Plaid Skirts and Basic Black, Sarah Schmidth, adoption education advocate, and Muthoni Gaciku Kittredge, co-host of the podcast Birth Mothers Amplified, discussing birthparent exper...

Join us for a powerful conversation with Kelsey Vander Vliet Ranyard and Vicki Twomey, two birthparents whose families embody the multi-generational experience of adoption. We'll explore the rarely discussed phenomenon of generational birthparents — families where the experience of placing a chil...

It can be difficult to see the full picture in adoption, because we often only hear from one side of an adoption triad at a time. However, adopted people and adoptive parents within the same family have individual and unique perspectives and struggles that require the context of the rest of their...

This session explores how adopted boys—particularly Black adopted boys—are often rendered invisible when adoption is understood as an endpoint rather than a lifelong experience. While stability and love are essential, they do not automatically address the layered identity, emotional, and belongin...