Celia Center Blog
Learn from all the Voices of the Constellation Series First-Birth Parents, Adoptees, Former Foster Youth, Foster Parents, Adoptive Parents, and Kinship …
Stories from the Adoption Circle
A social worker and adoptive mother wanted to gather stories from those who are within the various parts of the adoption circle. And these stories have been helpful to me and help the world understand more deeply how adoption impacts all member of the adoption constellation. Read Stories from the Adoption Circle…
Celia Center Arts Festival|National Adoption Month
Celia Center Arts Festival 2024: Celebrating Resilience and Creativity in Fostered and Adopted Voices LOS ANGELES, CA, September 30, 2024: The Celia Center is proud to present its fourth Celia Center Arts Festival (CCAF) – an empowering event that brings together the...
Vital Touch By Sarah Dalian
I am Sarah to most, Puma to some, and Dariya to my birth mother. I was born in Kostani, Kazakstan in 1997, and was given up at birth by my young and unsupported mother. Then subsequently placed into an orphanage, where I stayed for the first 4 years of my life.
Open Adoption: Is it worth the angst, fear and complication?
For decades adoption was shrouded in secrecy, shame and sealed records. In the early 1990s a new way of adoption—called open adoption— slowly began to take hold. Open adoption means that the adoptive and the birth families are known to each other and can maintain contact. Today, most adoptions are open.
29 Things I Wish I Knew Before Adoption Entered my Life
A first mother shares her story about planning an adoption and speaks from the heart. This Grown in My Heart Adoption Carnival Topic was supposed to be “10 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Was Touched By Adoption”, but I can’t use the feel good wording of “touched”. I was not touched by adoption, it’s more like torched, trampled, traumatized, terrorized, tortured and torn apart by adoption.
Celia Center Is Now On a Mission to Support Adult Adoptees of California Restore Equal Access To Their Original Birth Certificates
How do we Restore Equal Access For Adoptees in California? By beginning a healthy dialogue of understanding, education and compassion for all…
Celia Center is hoping to help restore access to original birth certificates for all adult adoptees (clean adoption reform)….
What It Feels Like to Be in Foster Care Event May 2023
During May’s National Foster Care Awareness Month, on Thursday, May 18th we had a special screening of a film that educates what foster children go through and what it will take to make a difference in their lives. Angels Nest and Celia Center Inc., co-hosted the “What It Feels Like to Be in Foster Care” event, which aimed to raise awareness and offer solutions for handling the foster care crisis in Los Angeles.
The Parallel Universe of… Who am I? by David B. Bohl
The feelings of shame haven’t disappeared, but I was able to mask them so much better with alcohol—it was a cure for all my woes! What I didn’t know was that this “healing” elixir was also poisoning me—me and the very connections I was making. Eventually, everything fell apart. And I had to find a new way to live as a sober but still fragmented person. I recovered from alcohol but it wasn’t until I recovered those other fragments of myself that I became truly whole.
Roadmap to Reunion: 8 PACTS | National Adoption Conference
This article provides a framework for setting boundaries in an adoptee and birthmother or birthfather reunion. So, both parties decide together how the relationship will be and have set goals and expectations entering into the reunion with empathy, understanding and compassion, have an open mind, and respect they will have different narratives entering the reunion.