Journeys After Adoption: Understanding Lifelong Issues

What can we learn about the experience of adoption from those who have taken that journey? How can those touched by adoption navigate successfully through the issues of search, reunion, and aftermath? Will those answers have a positive impact on adoption today? Drawing upon the experiences of dozens of triad members—adopted persons, birth parents, and adoptive parents—the authors offer insight into the concerns, issues, joys, and pain experienced by those who lives are framed by adoption.

The book explores such questions as:

•How do I make the decision to search for my parents?

•How do I prepare emotionally?

•What are my adoptive parents feeling and thinking?

•What if I am rejected, encounter death, or reach a dead end?

•How do I develop a relationship with siblings I've never known?

The authors deal sensitively with these and many other issues. Attention is also given to the needs and concerns of adoptive parents as their children grow into adults. Practical advice helps prepare triad members to deal emotionally and psychologically with the process of search and reunion.

JAYNE E. SCHOOLER is an affiliate trainer with the Institute for Human Services in Columbus, Ohio, where she played a major role in the development of adoption training curriculum for professionals and families used nationwide. Jayne has over twenty years of experience in child welfare, first as a foster parent, then as an adoptive parent, adoption professional, and educator. She is the author of The Whole Life Adoption Book (1993), Searching for a Past (1995), and co-author of the award-winning Telling the Truth to Your Adopted or Foster Child (Bergin & Garvey, 2000).

BETSIE L. NORRIS is an adoptee who searched for and reunited with her birthparents in 1986. An RN working in child psychiatry at the time, Betsie felt her reunion was the most profound experience of her life and developed a commitment that others should not have to face these issues without support. She founded Adoption Network Cleveland in 1988. She is a frequent spokesperson in the media, has assisted in over 1,400 reunions, and has worked extensively on changing Ohio's adoption laws.

JAYNE E. SCHOOLER is an affiliate trainer with the Institute for Human Services in Columbus, Ohio, where she played a major role in the development of adoption training curriculum for professionals and families used nationwide. Jayne has over twenty years of experience in child welfare, first as a foster parent, then as an adoptive parent, adoption professional, and educator. She is the author of The Whole Life Adoption Book (1993), Searching for a Past (1995), and co-author of the award-winning Telling the Truth to Your Adopted or Foster Child (Bergin & Garvey, 2000).

BETSIE L. NORRIS is an adoptee who searched for and reunited with her birthparents in 1986. An RN working in child psychiatry at the time, Betsie felt her reunion was the most profound experience of her life and developed a commitment that others should not have to face these issues without support. She founded Adoption Network Cleveland in 1988. She is a frequent spokesperson in the media, has assisted in over 1,400 reunions, and has worked extensively on changing Ohio's adoption laws.