Adoption Identity Race Exploration (AIRE)
AIRE was created out of the need for an inclusive space for BIPOC adoptees (of all genders, identities, and experiences) to build and collaborate. AIRE…
Resource Who: Community
Asian Girls Ignite
This nonprofit organization provides educational programs for AANHPI (Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander) youth who want to celebrate their individual and collective power.
Psychology Today
Psychology Today is a media outlet that publicizes literature and resources about behavioral science and mental health. This directory in particular offers detailed listings for…
Beyond Words Psychological Services
This LLC, established by Dr. Chaitra Wirta-Leiker, offers a directory of professional (medical and mental health) resources in the Denver Metro Area. Dr. Wirta-Leiker specializes…
Adopt a Love Story: “10 Needs Adoptees Want You to Know About”
This article explains some of the overlooked parts of being adopted that adoptees want others to know about. It explains how adoption is a lifelong…
Adoption.com: Spouse of adoptee issues/support
This forum is dedicated to supporting spouses of adoptees. It addresses attachment issues, self-blaming, and trust and commitment issues. These perspectives are not universally true…
GLADNEY Center for Adoption: “What Do Adoptees Wish People Knew about Them?”
This is a brief article that explains some things that adoptees would like others to know about them. It describes how adoptees are similar to…
Adoption Reconnect
The Adoption Reconnect Facebook page focuses on partners of adoptees. It validates their feelings, examines adoptees’ feelings, and explains how to care for their adoptee…
Transfiguring Adoption: “A Spouse’s Love for an Adoptee”
This blog article shares the author’s experiences and perspective about what it’s like to be the spouse of an adoptee. He empathizes with his wife’s…
China Family Search
This is a resource page for Chinese adoptees interested in searching for birth family. It offers information and resources for both the adoptive parent and…
Korea Adoption Services
KAS allows birth families to search for the biological children and adoptees to search for their biological family. They offer post-adoption services, including birth country…
China – Birthparent search
Birthparent Search is a private Facebook group for Chinese adoptees and adoptive relatives. The goal of this group is to provide support and resources for…
Family Ties: Chinese Adoptee Birth Family Search
Family Ties is a private Facebook group that offers guidance and support for people searching for birth families in China. While this is not an…
CACH-ALL
This is a support group for families and adoptees in the UK who have completed international adoption. They have in-person meetups, social media connection, as…
NPR: “I Found My Birth Mother. It Didn’t Rock My Life — And That’s OK”
This is a short, narrative story about an adoptee’s experience meeting her birth mother. This story will benefit adoptees who are considering conducting a birth…
ReunionEyes
This blog shares an adoptee’s experience about reunion with her birth family. It offers insight about how the experience has impacted her identity and how…
A Family in China
An archive of a podcast that discusses the (birth family) searching journey in multiple perspectives (adoptees, birth parents, & searchers). This is a great resource…
Nikwi Hoogland
In an Instagram page in blog-like format, this resource offers a personal look at an adoptee’s thoughts and experiences about her identity and reunion experience.…
I Wished for You: An Adoption Story for Kids
This story follows a conversation between a child and his mother and their conversation about God and family. This book affirms how love is what…
A Forest of Doors: An Orphan’s Quest
This novel is about a young orphan who dreams of reuniting her family after decades of separation. She begins a quest and gains more than…
Delly Duck: Why A Little Chick Couldn’t Stay With His Birth Mother
This is a children’s picture book that centers around a foster care adoption story. It’s meant to help explain adoption support, kinship care, and special…
Adoption Is a Lifelong Journey
This book highlights the adoption journey as a child adoptee. It provides insight into the emotions and thoughts an adoptee or foster child, while also…
God Painted Me
This is a children’s picture book that discusses transracial adoption. It uses religion to portray adoption and human creation.
Before We Were Yours
Based on true events, this book is about The Foss children’s journey with loss and being placed into an orphanage. This book focuses on the…
Adoption Stories: Excerpts from Adoption Books for Adults
This book emphasizes that adoptees have varying backgrounds. It argues that adoptees have the right to ask questions about their background (adoption documents, agency, etc.).…
Foster Child
This book is about a young girl who is cared for by her great grandmother. When her great grandmother is placed into a nursing facility,…
Last Airlift: A Vietnamese Orphan’s Rescue from War
This is a true story about life in a Saigon orphanage, a rescue flight from Vietnam to Canada, and international adoption. It tells the story…
Adopted Jane
This book is about a girl who has lived in an orphanage for most of her life. She has acted as a caretaker for other…
My Forever Family: from fostering to adoption
This children’s book is about a young boy’s journey from foster care to adoption. It highlights the adoption process in simple terms and is meant…
I Love You Like Crazy Cakes
This is a children’s book that tells the story of a woman who travels to China to adopt a baby girl. It’s based on the…
The Family Book
In this children’s picture book, the author celebrates many different types of families. He assures readers that no matter what kind of family you have,…
The White Swan Express: A Story About Adoption
This is a children’s picture book that talks about the process of adoption from China. It shows the steps from the adoption agency paperwork, to…
The Red Thread: An Adoption Fairy Tale
This story originates from the ancient Chinese belief that an invisible, unbreakable red thread connects everybody destined to be together. In this children’s book, a…
What Is a Family?
In this Waldorf-style illustrated book, with depictions of families of all shapes, sizes and colors, kids discuss their families. It conveys that even though families…
Matilda
This is a classic fiction book about a precocious, intellectual girl and her journey through life and school. The protagonist (Matilda) is characterized as astonishingly…
The Red Blanket
This is the story of the author’s journey to China to adopt a baby girl. It’s a heartwarming adoption story that reveals the challenges, as…
A Mother for Choco
This is a children’s book about a young bird (Choco) who journeys to find a mother who looks just like himself. Eventually, he is taken…
Ten Days and Nine Nights: An Adoption Story
This book follows a little girl as she and her family prepare for a new child. It shows the girl’s mother flying off to Korea,…
Tell Me Again About the Night I Was Born
This book is “a special celebration of the love and joy an adopted child creates for a family. In asking her parents to tell her…
A Family Is a Family Is a Family
This is children’s storybook that talks about the vast and varied types of families. The book features families of every shape, size and relation. The…
The Boxcar Children
This is a book series following the four Alden siblings, who make their home in a boxcar. The books focus on themes such as family,…
I’ve Loved You Since Forever
This is a celebratory and poetic testament to the timeless love felt between parent and child. This picture book is inspired by the heartwarming story…
The Pinballs
This is a fictitious story about a young girl, Carlie, and her journey through foster care. She befriends the other children that she shares a…
Adoption Literature for Children and Young Adults: An Annotated Bibliography (Bibliographies and Indexes in Sociology)
This is an annotated bibliography that covers adoption literature published from 1990 to 1991 suitable for children and young adults. There are 503 titles in…
The Lost Daughters of China: Abandoned Girls, Their Journey to America, and the Search for a Missing Past
This book presents a cultural history of the events that led to the controversial One Child Policy in China and the generation-long abandonment of Chinese…
In Their Own Voices: Transracial Adoptees Tell Their Stories
This is a collection of interviews of Black and biracial young adults adopted by white parents. It features personal stories of two dozen individuals “who…
Lucky Girl: A Memoir
This is the true story of Mei-Ling Hopgood, one of the first wave of Asian adoptees to arrive in America. She never identified with her…
A Single Square Picture: A Korean Adoptee’s Search for Her Roots
This book is about a Korean-American adoptee who returned to Korea at 20 to search for her birth mother. The author cites feeling conflicted, shattered,…
Anne of Green Gables
This is a fictitious story about Anne Shirley, an eleven-year-old orphan who isn’t embraced by her adoptive family. Before they send her back, Anne wins…
Heidi
This is a story about a young orphan (Heidi) who lives with her grandfather. When Heidi goes to Germany to work in a wealthy household,…
Jane Eyre
This is a book about an orphan (Jane) who has felt outcast her entire life. Jane moves for work and falls in love with the…
Stellaluna
This is a children’s book about a lost young bat who finds her way safely home to her mother and friends. It explores themes of…
Great Expectations
Another classic work of fiction, this book is about a young orphan boy with grand dreams. This is a tale of crime, guilt, morality, and…
Oliver Twist
This is a classic, fictitious story about a young orphan who runs away to live with a group of pickpockets. Dickens created an entirely new…
All You Can Ever Know
This is a memoir by Korean-American adoptee Nicole Cheung. She tells the story the search for the people who gave her up, which coincided with…
Palimpsest: Documents From a Korean Adoption
This is an illustrated memoir by a Swedish-Korean adoptee about her life as an adoptee. The author (Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom) explores her feelings related to…
Adopt A New Beginning: “Support Groups for Adoptive Families”
The Support for Adoptive Families, Birth Families, and Adoptees is part of the New Beginning community. This community provides many kinds of support groups, including…
NACAC: “The Value of Adoption Groups: Supporting Parents, Supporting Kids, Supporting Families”
An article explaining the role a support group can play in the lives of adopted children and their families. The article also explains how support…
Wayfinder Family Services
This organization provides individualized support and services to children, youth and, adults who have special needs or have been in foster care. They strive to…
Bankrate: “The 9 best scholarship search engines”
This article ranks and discusses some of the best scholarship search engines. These engines can be useful in finding scholarships that are adoption specific.
Adoption STAR: “Scholarship Opportunities”
Adoption STAR offers four unique scholarship opportunities for the adoption community. Scholarships are for academics, LGBTQ+ prospective parents, and special needs children. All of the…
American Adoptions: “College Scholarships for Adoptees”
This lists different scholarships available to adopted and fostered youth. The list is composed of various scholarships for higher education. There’s a brief description about…
SmartScholar: Scholarships for Chinese Students
A scholarship directory that offers scholarships for Chinese students. There are descriptions, requirements and qualifications, award amount, deadlines, and application links for each scholarship.
goingmerry: “30 Valuable Scholarships for Asian American Students in 2023”
This is a list of 30 scholarships for Asian-American and minority students. The amount, provider, eligibility requirements, and application requirements are listed for each award.
Child Welfare Information Gateway: “Adoption”
This webpage offers resources on for all aspects of domestic and intercountry adoption, however it focuses on adoption from the US foster care system. It…
AAC: “State by State Support Groups”
A list of support groups in North America, including name, state, meeting times, and contact information. Group members can include both adopted adults and birth…
Gladney Center for Adoption: Adoption Forums
This is an online forum containing numerous threads about adoption. Categories include adoptive parents, foster care, special needs, adult adoptees, and more. Each category contains…
Heart of Adoptions, Incorporated: Support Groups
Heart of Adoptions is a private adoption agency. They offer a list of various support groups, and descriptions and contact information for each group. There…
Adoption Support Alliance: Connection Groups
This alliance brings adoptive families together in North Carolina. They offer three types of groups: therapist-led, community-led, and a mix of support and education (“support-ucation”).…
Adoption Family Support Network (AFSN): Post Adoption Support
This network gives adoptive parents a community of people to share experiences and answers about adoption. They have a list of support groups for parents…
ICAV Post Adoption Services
A list of intercountry and transracial, adoptee-led, post-adoption services located in the US. It includes search reunion services, counseling and therapy services, mentorship programs, and…
Adopted (2008)
This tells the story of two adoptees and their families. One family is a couple excitedly preparing for the adoption of a baby girl. The…
The Drop Box (2015)
A documentary about a South Korean pastor made famous for his “drop box.” The film underscores his religion, work with adoption, and the function of…
American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy: “Adoption”
This article explains how adoption and the attitudes surrounding it have changed. It explains different reasonings behind the decision to adopt, and how adoptive parents,…
North American Council on Adoptable Children: “Therapy Plays an Important Role in Adoptive Families’ Lives”
This article discusses the role that family therapy plays in adoptive families’ lives. It explains why therapy is important and encourages readers to choose a…
No Hands But Ours: “Preparing for Adoption: A Family Therapist’s Perspective”
An article on preparing for adoption by Ashley Yeager — a family therapist and Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI) practitioner. She offers five pieces of advice…
The Dark Matter of Love (2012)
A documentary on the psychological aspects of growing up with and without parental love. The story follows the Diaz family, who chooses to adopt three…
Stuck (2013)
A documentary about children on their journeys from orphanages to homes in the United States. This explores the corruption and greed behind the adoption process.…
Unlocking the Heart of Adoption (2002)
This is an hour-long documentary revealing the filmmaker’s journey as a birthmother. It also features the stories of adoptees, birthparents, and adoptive parents. A wide…
Child Welfare Information Gateway: “Adoption and School”
A webpage with resources for dealing with awkward questions and challenging assignments that adoptees have to handle at school.
Considering Adoption: “5 Things the Spouse of an Adoptee Should Know”
A brief article about five ways in which you can uniquely support and love an adopted spouse.
