Thriving Adoptees - Let's Thrive

Katie serves 10.18 Strategy from a wealth of experience gained from her career as an entrepreneur, business consultant, executive officer, and strategist over the last seventeen years. Before founding 10.18 Strategy, Katie was a business consultant for over ten years, serving both for-profit and non-profit leaders with innovative strategies that brought solutions to complex problems. Katie has ser...

Here's bit about Stef from his website In 2013, my life had crashed around my ears. After struggling with a lifetime of anxiety and depression, my marriage broke down and I was contemplating losing everything I loved and had worked so hard for so many years. I was at an all time low, I couldn't sleep, couldn't eat and could not find a way out of the black hole in front of me, I could not find any...

Here's a bit about Clare from her website "Hello my name is Clare. For a long time, I wasn’t at ease with who I thought I was. I felt anxious and worried that people would think I was stupid. I worried about getting things wrong. I held myself back in case I would mess things up. I felt stressed, ill at ease, apprehensive. I didn’t like myself or how I was in the world. I spent many many years rea...

Founder of the Plus One Adoption Foundation, Inc., Michele Katz builds connections with charitable services in the space of adoption and fundraising, to help families come together and stay together. The organization’s goal to provide the resources in order to help place 2.5M children into loving families stems from the 2.5 million children lost in the Holocaust and the Jewish credence of mending...

Michele Kriegman is a storyteller by nature but she was missing her own backstory well into adulthood. Finding her birth-father helped complete it. During this session of the U.S. Supreme Court the focus of many of her public talks will be the Indian Child Welfare Act, a new battlefield in the culture wars, which played a pivotal role in her own story. She worked for many years in U.S. and Japanes...

Here's a little about Kristine's organisation from her website: Hawaii International Child (HIC) (founding name, Hawaii International Child Placement and Family Services, Inc.), was established in 1975 by members of Hawai'i’s adoption community. HIC’s founding members came from a background of personal connection to international adoption. Some had parents who’d been adopted, others had adopted ch...

Astrid founded Adoption Mosaic. Here's a bit about her from their website: Astrid has a degree in sociology with an emphasis in adoption. For twenty plus years, she has traveled the country to lead youth groups, present workshops on transracial parenting, talking with children about adoption and various other workshops focusing on adoption. Prior to creating Adoption Mosaic, Astrid worked in both...

Nicole Ward Moore is a Board Certified Adoption Attorney and Florida Supreme Court Certified Family Mediator who manages and operates the Orlando office. Nicole has been practicing with the firm since opening the Orlando office in 2005. Nicole practices exclusively in the area of adoption law throughout the State of Florida and in conjunction with out-of-state placements. Nicole also represents ad...

Stephanie K. Sterling, MSW, LCSW is the Director of Family Services at Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Baton Rouge.  Stephanie received her MSW degree from Tulane University in 1996. She holds a 90-hour post graduate certification in Adoption and Foster Care Competence.  Stephanie has experience with inpatient, outpatient, and primary care behavioral health as well as pregnancy counseling.  S...

Here is a link to the podcast episode I mention about the Primal Wound at the end of the episode. https://thriving-adoptees.simplecast.com/episodes/primally-wounded-or-fundamentally-unwoundable-with-nick-mabey Mark Hoult-Allen is Chair of We Are Family, Jay Nicol is a Trustee. Here’s a bit about them from their website: We Are Family is a peer to peer support community by adopters, for adopters. W...

Sharen Ford is a nationally-recognized child welfare consultant and the retired Manager for Permanency Services for the Colorado Department of Human Services in the Division of Child Welfare Services. She retired with 30 years of comprehensive work history with the department. She oversaw six programmatic areas including the Foster Care and Adoption Program and supervised a team of professional st...

Nina is Director of Post Adoption Support at The Cradle, connect with her at: https://www.facebook.com/nina.friedman.cradle https://www.linkedin.com/in/nina-friedman-4a3b82/ Here's a little about The Cradle from their website: At The Cradle you will find a legacy of excellence, decades of experience, and a reputation for quality education that helps to inform adoption decisions.  Renowned as one o...

Connect with Brian here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-lynch-a7352320a/ Brian is CEO of The Children’s Community Programs of Connecticut  This is a multiservice agency founded in 1999 whose mission is to provide diverse and creative support services to children and families throughout Connecticut.   Find out more and connect at  https://www.ccp-ct.org/ https://www.facebook.com/CCPConnecticut/...

Allison Davis Maxon, M.S., LMFT is a nationally recognized expert in the fields of child welfare and children’s mental health specializing in Attachment, Developmental Trauma and Permanency/Adoption. She is the Executive Director of the National Center on Adoption and Permanency  and was the foster care consultant for the Paramount Pictures movie Instant Family . Allison was honored in 2017 with t...

Anna Valdez is the Program Director at Chosen and came on board in January of 2022. She is bilingual, and holds a BA in English with a Teacher Certification and an MA in English with a concentration in Literature and Culture and is completing her MA in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. After teaching high school for 2 years, Anna Valdez lived in Monterrey, Mexico for 5 years as a Program Coordina...

Here's a link to  the episode I mention in the podcast https://thriving-adoptees.simplecast.com/episodes/with-joy-carter-Ni_rUkb3   Lori Holden writes at LavenderLuz.com and hosts the podcast Adoption: The Long View . She’s the author of the acclaimed book, The Open-Hearted Way to Open Adoption: Helping Your Child Grow Up Whole , written with her daughter’s birth mom and featured on required readi...

Abby Jacobson is a professional Adoption Consultant bringing over 20 years of experience from her previous career as a psychotherapist & substance abuse counselor. Additionally, she has received training as a National Adoption Competency Mental Health Provider. With her knowledge of family systems & networking, it is her aim to provide support to individuals who have experienced the process of ado...

Marnie and Gail work with The Forget Me Not Family Society. Here's more about them from their website. It was formed for education, consultation, peer counselling and to offer support to all those who are impacted by adoption. We are a provincially registered, non-profit society in British Columbia, Canada and a federally registered charity, (88908-4869-RR0001) run by a dedicated group of voluntee...

Connect with Christian at https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-mayer-001/ Email him at carayamayer@gmail.com Guests and the host are not (unless mentioned) licensed pscyho-therapists and speak from their own opinion only. Seek qualified advice if you need help.

HelpUsAdopt.org, founded in 2007, is a national 501(c)(3) adoption grant program. HelpUsAdopt.org was founded by Becky and Kipp Fawcett as a response to their own personal adoption experience - they have 2 daughters -  in an effort to make adoption more feasible for all families.  The organization is the only one of its kind in the United States that embodies all of the following criteria: awards...

Paige Adams Strickland (1961- ) was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and adopted at 13 months. In 1987 she began a search for her biological family members. She has a BA from Florida State University in Spanish Education. She has 30 years experience in teaching. Her writing has been featured and won attention from scinti.com, a wordwithyoupress.com, soniamarsh.com and adoptionvoicesmagazine.com. Find out...

Steph is an independent Social Worker, Therapist , Trainer, Manager, Academic, Practice Educator and Consultant. The main focus of her career has been children's mental health and she managed an award-winning mental health service for children and adopted children for over a decade Connect with her at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanie-dip-s-w-ba-bsc-ma-pgce-fhea-08633890/ Guests and the host...

A Little About Damon Davis "I had the good fortune to be reunited with my biological mother in 2009 in a heart warming story of coincidental history, a mutual desire to be reunified, and the pure luck to be able to surprise my biological mother, Ann, for our reunion on her birthday! I always enjoy hearing and sharing the real stories of our lives that makes each of us who we are. I’m devoting this...

Here's a bit about Jaclyn from her website  "I believe healthy, post-adoption outcomes begin with pre-adoption education and intentional parenting. My goals are to create a space that embodies compassion, to foster a therapeutic relationship that enables vulnerability, and to support the exploration of your whole self. I am an ally, an empath, and an attuned listener. I offer a safe environment wi...

Jeanette Yoffe, M.A., M.F.T., earned her Master's in Clinical Psychology, specializing in children, from Antioch University in June of 2002. She treats children with serious psychological problems secondary to histories of abuse, neglect, and /or multiple placements. She has specialized for the past 18 years in the treatment of children who manifest serious deficits in their emotional, cognitive,...