The importance of engaging adoptees in the design and ownership of post adoption support services
in Adoptees Educate, Adoption Agencies, Adoption Education for Professionals, Australia, Critical Thinking in Adoption, Lived experience leadership, New Zealand, Post Adoption Support, Search and Reunion in Adoption, Transracial Adoption
On 20 Nov 2024, I presented online to a forum on Post Adoption attended by the Hague Central Authorities responsible for intercountry adoption as signatory countries. This forum is held yearly and shared between the Hague countries. The 2024 forum was hosted by the governments of Australia and New Zealand. One part of my presentation was to talk about the importance of engaging lived experience in the design and ownership of post adoption support services.
An excellent example of living the motto of “nothing about us without us”, is that in Australia, we intercountry adoptees have been very proactive in engaging with our federal government and in response, the Department of Social Services (DSS) have actively engaged our community to be consulted in the design of our post adoption services (PAS).
We’ve learnt how to do this better and better over time. For the first 5 year contract in which PAS was provided, the Australian government engaged an independent organisation to run our Community Stakeholder workshop consultations. The independent organisation also ran 1:1 consultations and small group discussions. For the Community Stakeholder workshops, as adoptees, we attended in person in each city of Australia where a white person facilitator stood up, with no lived experience and asked us questions about the post adoption support and what we thought of it.
Our feedback for these sessions told of the frustration we experienced as adoptees, to be engaged by a facilitator who had no idea of our experiences or the services. It slowed down the discussions because the facilitator had little idea of what we were talking about and it was like we had to educate the facilitator as we went.
In the second round of 5 year contract of the services, the Australian federal government improved how they consulted with us. They again engaged an independent organisation to facilitate the community feedback, but this time they ensured that organisation also formally engaged an academic with lived experience to be part of their leadership team. This independent organisation then approached ICAV and asked me to also consult with them on their questions, the best ways forward with the process, and any suggestions as to how best to engage with the community. In the end, the independent organisation truly listened to both adoptees – myself and the academic – and allowed us to run the consultation for them. We designed it, administered it, ran it, recorded it, wrote up the final report, and had control of the space so that it was completely for us adoptees, by us adoptees.
Twice we’ve run the consultations this way as one large part of their overall consultation. The independent organisation also continued to interview the community 1:1 so that adoptive parents, adoption professionals and those who wanted a separate meeting were included and consulted with.
As a result of our adoptee led consultation, it became apparent that the adoptee community wants more of this type of consultation. It led to outcomes which weren’t articulated before but are definite advantages:
- the community is becoming educated about how the service is structured and designed, rather than just being passive recipients of it.
- the community builds and heals together by being actively engaged and involved in solution making.
As part of the community feedback over the past 2 separate 5 year contracts, the PAS provides more than emotional health service by trained counsellors, but also offers what we term a Small Grant funding opportunity. It has a been created by including lived experience expertise in the design of this process. It gives adoptees the opportunity to get involved in their own way to help build, connect and heal the community. To apply for these small grants, adoptees write up a project plan with a budget estimate, showing what the goals and aims are, who the project benefits and why there’s a need for this project.
We’ve had so much success with our small grants and have seen an explosion of activity in the community with just a tiny injection of funds. Groups of adoptees who otherwise wouldn’t be engaged, get together for the first time. Initiatives and suggestions to address the community needs become visible for government on a much wider scale. It’s been empowering to realise just how much the community heals and grows when the support is not just focused on traditional counselling therapy.
I know in a couple of other adoptive countries, the Netherlands and Belgium, there is similar but also very different post adoption funding models made available to assist adoptee led organisations to run projects and initiatives. I’ve witnessed how empowering it is for adoptees to be involved in and produce their own activities that help the community be better supported.
So my key message here is: please don’t underestimate how healing it can be for adoptees to to become active owners of our own solutions. Support them by providing seed funding that helps us run our own projects, creating much needed supports and resources to the community.
Most importantly, if you invest in the community and they produce resources and supports with your funding, that investment stays in the community but you need to ensure they keep and own the intellectual property of their work and that it doesn’t disappear with the NGO engaged to provide it, who leave the space when the contract runs out. Recognise that the lived experience community stays for the long haul. We have no choice. We are stuck for our lifelong journey living this because it is our life, not just a job.
Hopefully this has provided some food for thought on how to engage lived experience to provide a sustainable model of post adoption support that will be around for decades. I recognise that various countries are at different stages of awareness in how to provide post adoption support and how to engage the lived experience community.
If any country is struggling to connect to their adoptee communities and want to learn what value adoptees can provide, ICAV is more than happy to help connect you.
I have facilitated many group leaders to meet with governments in the past. For example, Quebec asked me to help bring in lived experience expertise on searching and reunion so I took many of the Canadian adoptee leaders and helped them meet and talk. In New Zealand 2023, the central authority asked for a presentation on the value of post adoption supports. In the USA in 2019, I took a group of 10 USA adoptee leaders to meet the Dept of State. At the last Special Commission meeting of the Hague in 2022, I brought in the maximum number of adoptee leaders I could, to represent 8 birth countries and 5 different adoptive countries to participate and be heard. Together with the other 5 international adoptee led organisations, the Special Commission heard from the most variety of voices ever presented at the Hague.
It is so important that Central Authorities learn how to lean into the collective knowledge of the adoptee community that has been active like ICAV for decades. We can help you understand how intercountry adoption is actually being experienced and how best the community wants to be supported in post adoption support.
Many thanks to the Australian federal government, Department of Social Services (DSS) for their invitation to present and for their leadership in elevating the lived experience of adoptees and by recognising the expertise adoptees can have. I recognise that it is a Central Authority forum and that usually, our voices are not recognised at the same level as adoption professionals. However, our Australian federal government has an almost 10 year history of actively reaching out to our adoptee community and engaging us in the important discussions and forums, recognising our expertise and the wealth of knowledge we can provide in these forums.
Resources
Co-designing with people with lived experience (Roses in the Ocean, a suicide prevention organisation that ICAV liaises with)