- Mental Health
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 in issues of race, identity, societal expectaion, family relationships, and adoption.
- Community Connection
GLADNEY Center for Adoption: “What Do Adoptees Wish People Knew about Them?”
This article explains a few things that adoptees would like others to know about them. It describes how adoptees are similar to everyone else, how they are different, and encourages people to not assume things about adoption. This source can apply to and most benefit those who don’t know much about adoption but would like to learn further about it.
- Community Connection
Adoption Reconnect
The Adoption Reconnect Facebook page focuses on partners of adoptees. It validates the feelings of partners of adoptees, explains an adoptee’s feelings/differences, and how one should support their adoptee partner. This source can apply to and most benefit spouses of adoptees who want to understand/support their partners.
- Community Connection
Transfiguring Adoption: “A Spouse’s Love for an Adoptee”
This narrative article shares the author’s experiences and perspectives on what it is like to be a spouse of an adoptee. He emphasizes with his wife’s feelings, explains the reasoning of his own feelings, and how he chooses to support her. This source can apply to and most benefit spouses of adoptees who want to understand another spouse’s perspective.
- Community Connection
Adopt a Love Story: “10 Needs Adoptees Want You to Know About”
This article explains ten common needs adoptees want others to know about, like that adoption is a lifelong journey, they need to claim their identity, and more. This source can apply to and most benefit spouses of adoptees who want to understand more about an adoptee’s identity.
- Community Connection
Adoption.com: Spouse of adoptee issues/support
This forum thread is to support spouses of adoptees. It deals with attachment issues, self-blaming, and biased personal opinions. It is important to understand that these perspectives are not universally true and may be triggering. This source can apply to and most benefit spouses of adoptees who want to connect with others and want new perspectives.
- Birth Family Search
China – Birthparent search
Birthparent Search is a Facebook group for Chinese adoptees, adoptive parents of Chinese adoptees, and other close relatives of Chinese adoptees. The goal of this group is to provide support and resources for finding birthparents in China.
- Birth Family Search
Family Ties: Chinese Adoptee Birth Family Search
Family Ties is a Facebook group that offers guidance and support for people searching for birth families in China. This is NOT an advocacy group and is a platform solely for searching, guidance, and support.
- Adoptee Groups
CACH-ALL
This is a support group for families and adoptees in the UK who have completed international adoption. They have in-person meetups as well as social media connections.
- Birth Family Search
ReunionEyes
In blog format, an adoptee writes about her adoption experience and the experience of reuniting with her birth mother. This source has a lot of insight into how the experience has impacted the adoptee and how some people integrate their lives with both their adoptive and birth families.
- Birth Family Search
A Family in China
An archive of a podcast that discusses the searching journey in multiple perspectives (adoptees, birth parents, & searchers). This source can apply to and most benefit those who are invested in learning more about this topic.
- Birth Family Search
Nikwi Hoogland
In an Instagram page in blog-like format, this source offers a personal look at an adoptee’s thoughts and experiences surrounding her identity and reunion experience. This source can apply to and most benefit adoptees who are wondering about an experience like this.
- Literature
Lucky Girl: A Memoir
In this true story, journalist Mei-Ling Hopgood, one of the first wave of Asian adoptees to arrive in America, “comes face to face with her past when her Chinese birth family suddenly requests a reunion after more than two decades. | In 1974, a baby girl from Taiwan arrived in America, the newly adopted child of a loving couple in Michigan”. Hopgood had an “all-American upbringing, never really identifying with her Asian roots or harboring a desire to uncover her ancestry”. | When Hopgood was in her twenties, her birth family showed up. They end up being “a boisterous, loving, bossy, complicated middle-class family who hound her daily life by phone, fax, and letter, in a language she doesn’t understand until she returns to Taiwan to meet them. As her sisters and parents pull her into their lives, claiming her as one of their own, the devastating secrets that still haunt this family begin to emerge. Spanning cultures and continents, Lucky Girl brings home a tale of joy and regret, hilarity, deep sadness, and great discovery as the author untangles the unlikely strands that formed her destiny”.
- Literature
A Single Square Picture: A Korean Adoptee’s Search for Her Roots
Kim Ji-yun, who grew up in Seoul, Korea soon became Catherine Jeanne Robinson, who had an American family and lived in Salt Lake City, Utah. Twenty years later, she returned to Seoul in search of her birth mother and found herself “an American outsider in her native land”. Katy was left “conflicted, shattered, exhilarated, and moved in ways she never imagined”. This book is “a personal odyssey that ascends to the universal”, and is “a story that will resonate with anyone who has ever questioned their place in the world — and had the courage to find the answers”.
- Literature
All You Can Ever Know
Cheung is a Korean transracial adoptee from Oregon and was born severely premature. She grew up knowing her adoption story as a “comforting, prepackaged myth”. As she grew up, she began to face prejudice, find her Asian American identity and became more curious about her origins. In this memoir, Cheung tells of the “search for the people who gave her up, which coincided with the birth of her own child”. It is a “profound, moving chronicle of surprising connections and the repercussions of unearthing painful family secrets—vital reading for anyone who has ever struggled to figure out where they belong”.
- Literature
Palimpsest: Documents From a Korean Adoption
Sjöblom was adopted from Korea at two years old into a Swedish home. Throughout her childhood, she struggled to fit in and was constantly told to suppress her feelings of wanting to know more about her origins. Thus, she learned to bury the feelings of abandonment, like many other adoptees. In this illustrated memoir, “Sjöblom’s unaddressed feelings about her adoption come to a head when she is pregnant with her first child [and] she discovers a document containing the names of her biological parents”. She realizes “her own history may not match up with the story she’s been told her whole life: that she was an orphan without a background”. She ends up digging more into her background by traveling to Korea and the orphanage and finds out that the truth is “more complicated than the story she was told and struggled to believe”.
- Literature
In Their Own Voices: Transracial Adoptees Tell Their Stories
This is a collection of interviews conducted with Black and biracial young adults adopted by white parents. It entails personal stories of two dozen individuals “who hail from a wide range of religious, economic, political, and professional backgrounds”. Some things this book explores is “How does the experience affect their racial and social identities, their choice of friends and marital partners, and their lifestyles?” The book includes overviews of both the history and current legal status of transracial adoption as of 2000.
- Community Connection
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. The community provides multiple types of support groups including those for adoptive moms, adoptive dads, adult adoptees 25+, and youth adoptees 8-13 years old. As of now ¾ of the support groups are currently being held over Zoom even though the group is based in Boise, Idaho.
- Community Connection
NACAC: “The Value of Adoption Groups: Supporting Parents, Supporting Kids, Supporting Families”
An article by the North American Council on Adoptable Children that explains the role a support group can play in the lives of adopted children, their families, and parents. The article also covers how support groups can form and explains five different types of groups.
Wayfinder Family Services
Post adoption resource webpage by Wayfinder Family Services. Lilliput offers support groups, classes, and social events for families in 19 counties throughout Northern California. Lists out post-adoption service locations and lists out some thoughts in how post-adoption services can help
Adoption STAR: “Scholarship Opportunities”
Adoption STAR offers four unique scholarship opportunities for adoptees, and other members of the adoption triad. The four include: 1) the Adoption STAR Academic Scholarship Program 2) Adoption STAR Scholarship for LGBTQ+ Prospective Adoptive Parents 3) Shining Star Scholarship for the Adoption of Children with Special Needs and 4) Parenthood For Me Medical Scholarship. All of the criteria for each scholarship can be found here.
- Scholarships
American Adoptions: “College Scholarships for Adoptees”
This article American Adoptions article lists different scholarships available to adopted and fostered youth. The list is composed of various college based scholarships.
- Scholarships
SmartScholar: Scholarships for Chinese Students
A scholarship directory that features scholarships for Chinese Students with descriptions of the requirements, qualifications, award amount, date and links.
- Scholarships
goingmerry: “30 Valuable Scholarships for Asian American Students in 2023”
List of 30 scholarships for Asian American Students, with description that includes amount, provider, eligibility requirements, and application requirements.
- Adoptee Groups
Child Welfare Information Gateway: “Adoption”
Resources on all aspects of domestic and intercountry adoption, with a focus on adoption from the U.S. foster care system. Includes information for adoption professionals, adopted adults, expectant parents considering adoption, birth parents and relatives, and prospective and adoptive parents on a broad range of adoption topics.
- Adoptee Groups
AAC: “State by State Support Groups”
The American Adoption Congress offers a list of support groups in the United States and Canada including name, location/state, meeting times, and contact information. The group’s members can include both adopted adults and birth parents, others welcome anyone impacted by adoption, and a few are open exclusively to adoptees or birth parents.
- Community Connection
Gladney Center for Adoption: Adoption Forums
Adoption Forum is an online community forum containing many different threads relating to various aspects of adoptions. Larger categories include adoptive parents, foster care, special needs, adult adoptees, and more. Each category contains multiple subcategories where people can interact with each other and ask/answer questions.
- Community Connection
Heart of Adoptions, Incorporated: Support Groups
Heart of Adoptions is a private adoption agency designed to help create families through adoption. They offer a list of various support groups and accompanying descriptions, alongside ways to contact the groups.
- Community Connection
Adoption Support Alliance: Connection Groups
The Adoption Support Alliance brings together adoptive families from across the Charlotte region. They offer six groups, within three categories: therapist-led, community-led, or a mix of support and education known as support-ucation. Session donations of $20 are suggested, but all groups are “Pay What You Can” and members are encouraged to participate only whenever possible.
- Community Connection
Adoption Family Support Network (AFSN): Post Adoption Support
The Adoptive Family Support Group gives adoptive parents access to a community of people who can provide answers and share experiences. One resource they offer is a list of different support groups available to parents in Michigan filtered by county. Another is a calendar with different events occurring during the month and a description.
- Adoptee Groups
ICAV Post Adoption Services
List of intercountry and transracial, adoptee-led, post-adoption services located in the USA. Has search reunion services, counseling therapy services, and more.
- Media
Adopted (2008)
Adopted tells the story of two adoptees and their families. One family is a couple preparing for the adoption of a baby girl. The other, a 32 year old adoptee from Korea that has struggled to speak with her adoptive parents her whole life about adoption. The two stories are at opposite ends of the adoption process, but both stories converge to show that love alone is not enough to make a family work.
- Media
The Drop Box (2015)
Pastor Lee Jong Rak is a pastor in South Korea. His ‘drop box’ is a space where children can be placed if the parent decides to give up their child. Throughout the film, Pastor Lee emphasizes the special value of each child’s life, and how God has a plan for the little ones. The documentary focuses on his work with adoption and the babies placed inside his ‘drop box’.
- Mental Health
American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy: “Adoption”
This article explains how adoption, and the attitudes surrounding it have changed over the years. It explains different reasonings behind the decision to adopt, and how adoptive parents, like biological parents, love their children and want the best for them. The difference is that adopted children face different challenges that family therapy can help resolve or manage.
- Mental Health
North American Council on Adoptable Children: “Therapy Plays an Important Role in Adoptive Families’ Lives”
This article discusses the important role family therapy plays in adoptive families’ lives. It describes why therapy is important, and urges the reader to choose a therapist that is right for them.
- Mental Health
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 Practitioner. She incorporates a spiritual feel, and explains different steps for prospective adoptive parents to take.
- Media
The Dark Matter of Love (2012)
A documentary on the psychological aspects of growing up with and without parental love. The story centers around the Diaz family, who chooses to adopt three orphans from Russia, and how their new and old kids handle family together. It also covers their work with individualized family therapy that helps them to begin communicating more effectively.
- Media
Stuck (2013)
A documentary that follows four children from three different countries on their individual voyages from orphanages to their new homes with families in the United States. It explores the corruption and greed behind the adoption process as parents try to adopt kids but are blocked by outside efforts.
- Media
Unlocking the Heart of Adoption (2002)
This is an hour-long documentary which chronicles the filmmaker’s journey as a birthmother and reveal the personal storeis of adoptees, birthparents, and adoptive parents. A wide variety of perspectives on adoption are explored, including the connections between birth families and adoptive families.
- Media
Considering Adoption: “5 Things the Spouse of an Adoptee Should Know”
This brief article by Considering Adoption touches on five different things spouses need to know and recognize. While not incredibly complicated or detailed, this article is a good place to start.
