Shania Ives
Category: Identity
•
1h 28m
For Black and queer adoptees, identity is often layered, complex and negotiated in spaces that were not built with them in mind. When you grow up adopted into a society shaped by racism while also navigating queerness, the questions “Who am I?”, “Where do I belong?” and “Am I safe to be fully seen?” can carry a different weight. Join Shania Ives, an adopted person, therapist in training and the founding director of The Dunbar Project CIC, a UK-based non-profit organization that supports adoptees and care leavers, as she describes how adoption intersects with loss, attachment, identity formation and, for many, developmental trauma.
Shania examines how intersecting identities shape mental well-being, relationships, and the sense of belonging, and highlights the unique challenges and resilience of adopted people living at these intersections. Shania highlights how adoption professionals and parents can better understand, support, and advocate for adoptees whose identities exist at the crossroads of race, sexuality, and adoption.
Up Next in Category: Identity
-
Dr. Tony Hynes
Dr. Tony Hynes shares groundbreaking research exploring how young, adult, Black interracial adoptees experience connection, identity, and belonging. Drawing from in-depth interviews across the U.S., this session examines the lived realities of adopted people and how race, family, and community sh...
-
Dr. Adam Anthony
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...
-
Joe Toolan
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 ...
