With the best of our community’s intentions, the COVID-19 Virus has altered so many of our plans! Among these changes, the Adoptee Identity Development Workshops are postponed until we regain our bearings! Self-care and connection are paramount, and we have support and resources for your Teens and for Young Adult Adoptees via Zoom

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It’s a privilege to present our bi-annual Adoptee Identity Development Workshops. Age-appropriate themes we will cover in the workshops include our unique adoption stories, how to feel empowered to talk about adoption with friends and family, challenges and strengths of transracial adoptive families, birth families, grief and loss, living in the digital world, and stress management

Register now,for the 2020 Workshops. Our multi-generational adoptee facilitators includes Robyn Shultz, MFT. We will embrace ongoing themes of identities, birth families, adoptive families, peers and school. Kumbi Butler, longtime yoga teacher, owner of The Heartbeat House and Korean adoptee, will be leading the stress reduction and relaxation module for our participants.

Registration is limited to provide personalized attention. We view your child from a developmental perspective, rather than chronological age. A 13-year-old may be more comfortable in the Tweens group. Or, you may have a 9-year-old who is already thinking about Tween themes. Please contact me to discuss where your child may best be served, or with any other questions. Click HERE for Flyer & Registration Form.

Kids Workshop: Sunday, April 19th from 1pm – 4pm

Tweens Workshop: Sunday May 31 from 1pm – 4pm

At A Place to Create 3137 Glendale Blvd.… Read the rest “2020 Spring Adoptee Identity Development Workshops are postponed”

In honor of Mother’s Day, a holiday that can have such complex meanings for all members of the adoption constellation. As members of the community and loved ones, I hope we can create a safe environment for adoptees, adoptive parents and birthmothers to share these feelings.

A Mah,

I was born on your twentieth birthday sixty years ago in New Orleans.  Since learning that in 1991, I’ve imagined every July 3rd, OUR birthday, that you would remember me. I’ve wondered how we are similar, what traits we’d share because of that.  You relinquished me on August 4th, 1953 at the Baptist Home for Unwed Mothers. What was that day like? It was Hot and humid, perhaps like HOME. Surrounded by whites and blacks, but no yellows; NOT like home. I know how that feels.

What could we have shared in the time we had together? What was it like to have me in your belly? Did you rail against me, or did you talk to me as I grew inside you? After giving birth to me did you see me, touch me or hold me? Or, in keeping with the times, did you know I was only steps away, yet as forbidden as the Forbidden Palace, to walk in and embrace me.  If you were like me, that compliant person who didn’t know that I was given tacit permission to look into my file when visiting at the orphanage years later, we stayed still and shamed, unable to peer in. Click here for complete letter.… Read the rest “Mother’s Day . . . my first letter to my first mother”

Announcing our biannual Spring Adoptee Identity Development Workshops. This is an adoptees-only experience for kids, tweens and teens to explore their age-appropriate themes in a safe and engaging space. Register by April 5th. Click on the link to the left for Flyer and Registration form.… Read the rest “2019 Spring Adoptee Identity Workshops”