JCICS sent out the following request:
The University of Maryland, Department of Family Science is collaborating with The Center for Adoption Support and Education, (C.A.S.E) to conduct a national survey of transracial adoptive families, examining the extent to which parents’ attitudes and practices impact the adolescent’s sense of self and racial identity. Joint Council asks its [...]
Carolina Hope is offering a live, interactive online education course on Transracial & Transcultural Adoptions. The cost for this course is only $15. You must sign-up at least 2 hours before the course begins.
After six adoptions, I have a stronger empathy with the pain that birth families experience than I have ever had before. With the pleasure of a new child I now have a larger reserve to experience the suffering their placement brings. I pray for the families more and I cry over their realities. I see that but for grace, it could be me releasing a child into a future without me — and my heart crumbles.
This is a reworked and reformatted article. To read the article, click on the image below, and you will be able to download the article as a PDF.
In a post two days ago, Dorothy Bode wrote in answer to those who ask the question, “Am I making a terrible mistake by adopting transracially?”:
The main thing I help them question is their motivations. “Is God building your family or are you trying to do it in spite of Him and in your own [...]
‘Am I making a terrible mistake by adopting transracially?” This is one of the hardest questions that adoptive parents ask me. It is layers deep and generations long. (more…)
Teaching our transracially adopted children to embrace their racial identities is a daily, intentional and God focused part of our parenting (more…)
Transracial adoption didn’t need to change my life. But I am a better parent and my family is stronger because it has. (more…)
Comments about Dorothy Bode’s transracial adoption interview on NPR’s Day to Day. In this May 28 interview, Dorothy discusses from her own experience the special issues facing transracial families.
NPR interviewed one of our blog’s writers, Dorothy Bode, about transracial adoption. You can listen to part one of this interview (7 min 44 sec) here. Dorothy did an excellent job!
Yesterday I had the opportunity of participating in the webinar that Carolina Hope’s director Laura Beauvais-Godwin did for families who are considering transracial/transcultural adoption. It was a good experience for me, and I hope that those who participated gained a little insight into the world of parenting children who don’t look like us. Personally, I wish [...]
This evening from 7 until 8:30 (Eastern), there is an online education course about Transracial and Transcultural Adoptions. This adoption course is offered as a webinar, which is a teleconference combined with web interface so that participants can see the presenter’s PowerPoint slides as she talks. The cost is $15 (free for Carolina Hope families). [...]
When we began adopting transracially, our families were very alarmed, and they didn’t hesitate to tell us. They were concerned about us being naive and unrealistic. About our ‘perfect’ one-boy-one-girl family being rocked so hard that it would be destroyed. They pointed out that with college expenses rising we couldn’t educate more than two — [...]
Carolina Hope is conducting a 1-hour transracial adoption education course on Tuesday, April 22, at 7 p.m. The cost is $15.
The course will be conducted online as a webinar, so participation will require an internet connection faster than dial-up. (Other than that, nothing is required. For more details, see the course page.)
This webinar is open [...]
There are many countries and adoption programs that are closed to our family due to our income, age, family size and ethnicity. It is probably good that they are closed, as I have been accused of a tendency toward ‘adoption addiction’ — and it just makes it easier to find the specific paths that God [...]
As we celebrate our adoption agency’s 10th Anniversary, I’m posting brief introductions of the Carolina Hope staff. March 10 I told you a little about our Assistant Director, Lisa Prather. Today I would like you to meet our Director of Ministry Outreach, Dan Cruver. I’ve asked him a few questions, and here are his answers.
JJ: [...]
It’s been a long week, with more than the usual adoption issues to deal with and more than the expected number of stares and comments from strangers. I sat down on Tuesday to have the ‘Where Babies Come From,’ discussion with my three oldest kids and realized that even there I have to think through [...]
Severely disabled, non-responsive, and unknown life expectancy. These are some of the technical words that define children many of my friends have adopted. These are the hard cold facts that fill the endless pages of their medical histories and that would have condemned them to limited lives in hospitals and other such institutions, except that [...]
This is our Ethiopia video that premiered at our recent benefit concert with Caedmon’s Call. It was created by Brannon McAllister from footage captured on our recent trip to Ethiopia. The children shown in this video live at one of the orphanages with which we work, an orphanage located in a village with [...]
Sometimes I forget when I am talking with people about transracial adoption (or parenting in general) to share the happy quiet moments as well as the hard ones. When I stop and watch, I see that my family has them every day. Sandwiched in between the training and the conflicts, the school work and the [...]