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 …
Because I Know You’ll Understand by Adoptee and Art Therapist Nicole Rademacher
An adoptee and art therapist, Nicole Rademacher, shares her thoughts about being part of an art and adoption event titled “Adoptee Voices” in Los Angeles, which was a gathering of young adoptees and adult adoptee mentors, pre-pandemic sponsored by Celia Center … This is for my fellow adoptees, for my community, for my tribe. Because you get me. You do…
Making the Most of Adoption Reunion: Affirmations & Videos by Marlou Russell Ph.D. Author and Adoptee
Marlou Russell, Author of Adoption Wisdom. She is an adoptee and long time pioneer in the field of adoption sharing her reunion publicly in Los Angeles in the 90’s. In this blog, she share’s her insight, experience and wisdom about reunion relationships and you truly need to know! Also included are her rare videos about reunion recorded at the National Adoption Conference in 2012 at Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles.
A Daughter’s Bill of Rights by Adoptee, Janice Stevenor Dale
This is a declaration of the daughter’s bill of rights. It is a list that few people discuss and many people take for granted; if you live within a normal, blood- related family you will rarely encounter these barriers. But, if you are adopted, your rights, continuing into adulthood, remain compromised. It is quite easy for a male dominated court to determine that a human child who cannot speak nor write, nor hire an attorney to represent their own rights should have their rights removed and maligned for the sake of other adults, those who did conceive you, or cannot conceive.
What Every Adoptive Parent Should Know About Search & Reunion by Michael Grand Ph.D. and Monica Byrne
For more than 30 years, the two of us have helped to facilitate a myriad of reunions and reconnections between adoptees and their birth families. During this time, we have learned many things that adoptive parents must consider when their adult child begins the journey to discover the first chapter of life that took the adoptee from one family and led to the formation of a second family. We offer these lessons in the spirit of fostering closer ties between adoptees, and their birth and adoptive families. www.CeliaCenter.org
Ten things Adoptees Want Their Birth Parents To Know About Reunion by Ross John Martin, Adoptee
A reunion with your birth family can be a wonderful thing but when I searched for my mother, I really had no idea about who or what I would find. I remember being fully prepared for being rejected, to be honest I was expecting it but I hoped at least I would know what she looked like and maybe she’d tell me about her life. I had spent years feeling abandoned by a person I had never met so I had built up some serious walls of defence around me. It had taken me years to build up the courage to find her, I was looking for something but I wasn’t quite sure what it was at that point….
How to Explain Foster Care to a Child? What is Foster Care? Animation created by Jeanette Yoffe, Former Foster Youth-Adoptee
Explain What Foster Care Means. …
Explain Why You Chose Foster Care. …
Explain Potential Behavior Issues. …
Explain You Are Always Available to Talk. …
Explain You Will be Fair as Possible. …
Learn More About Welcoming a Foster Child.
Find Your Birth Parents in the State of California ****Follow These Tips for Ancestry DNA
So you know you are adopted and want to find your bio-parents. Here are the steps I took to find my wife’s bio-parents. While there are a lot of DNA testing companies, I did all of my research using AncestryDNA even though I had 23andMe and had exported her DNA results to Family Tree DNA (FtDNA) and GEDmatch. Learn more here… “It’s not what you find, it’s that you find.”
Open Adoption Through A Father’s Eyes By Phil Weglarz
While each adoption story centers upon each man’s relationship with a particular child, I’ve been equally curious about how men navigate relationships with other family members in open adoptions. If you look into my kaleidoscope of open adoption experience, you might get a sense of the relationships between myself, my wife, our daughter, her birth mother, and other family members…..
Hints For Building Relationships With Birth Parents by Carole Lieber-Wilkins L.M.F.T.
Establishing and maintaining a relationship with birth parents during the process of adopting can be an intimidating, sometimes frustrating experience. It can also become one of the most enriching and rewarding experiences you will ever have.
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