Transracial and Intercountry Adoptions: Cultural Guidance for Professionals

CONTRIBUTORS

ROWENA FONG, ED.D., MSW, is the Ruby Lee Piester Centennial Professor in Services to Children and Families at the University of Texas at Austin, School of Social Work. She received her B.A. from Wellesley College, MSW from the University of California at Berkeley, and Ed.D. from Harvard University. Dr. Fong has served as educator, center director for Asian American studies, researcher, school social worker, residential treatment caseworker, preschool teacher, and administrator. Since 2010, she and Becky Harding, past President of Families of Children (FCC) from China, Austin chapter, have codirected the FCC/UT Chinese Culture Camp for children and siblings adopted from China in Austin, Texas. Dr. Fong’s primary areas of research and scholarship have been in child welfare, specifically transracial and intercountry adoptions, racial disproportionality and disparities, domestic and international victims of human trafficking, and culturally competent practice. She has published nine books and numerous articles in these areas and on other subjects related to Asian American children and families, primarily Chinese American children and families, and about immigrants and refugees.

RUTH G. MCROY, PH.D., MSW, is the first holder of the Donahue and DiFelice Endowed Professorship at Boston College Graduate School of Social Work. Before joining the Boston College faculty in 2009, McRoy was a member of the University of Texas at Austin School of Social Work faculty for 25 years and held the Ruby Lee Piester Centennial Professorship. She received her B.A. and MSW degrees from the University of Kansas and her Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. Over the years, she has served as a professor, research center administrator, clinical practitioner, researcher, consultant, and child welfare trainer. Her primary research and practice interests include adoption and foster care, racial and ethnic diversity, transracial adoptions, kinship care, family preservation, adoptive family dynamics, sibling placement issues, open adoptions, respite care, and other forms of postadoption services. McRoy has published numerous articles and ten books on such topics as transracial adoptions, special needs adoptions, openness in adoption, and many others.

ANN E. SCHWARTZ, PH.D., received a B.A. in sociology from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, and an M.A. in sociology from the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona. She completed a Ph.D. in social work at the University of Texas at Austin and was awarded a dissertation grant from the Fahs-Beck Foundation for Research and Experimentation. She is a professor of sociology at Concordia University Texas in Austin, Texas. Her professional fields of interest include child welfare policy, kinship care, foster care, ethnic identity, and adoption. She has published and presented on issues related to the impact of kinship and nonkinship foster care on the personal and ethnic identity development of African American adolescents. Currently, she is working with the Texas-Minnesota Adoption Research Project, focusing on the longitudinal experiences of birthmothers. In addition to teaching and research, Dr. Schwartz also coordinates the Service-Learning Program at Concordia, Texas. Previously, she administered a grant-funded initiative aimed at preparing students for service in the child welfare system through a partnership with Lutheran Social Services of the South. She has also served as assistant to the vice president of academic services at Concordia.

HOLLEE MCGINNIS, MSW, is a doctoral candidate in social work at Washington University in St. Louis. Her dissertation, funded by the Korea Foundation and U.S. Fulbright, focused on the mental health and academic outcomes of adolescents in orphanages in South Korea. Before returning to school she was the policy director at the Donaldson Adoption Institute. She received her B.A. from Mount Holyoke College and her MSW degree from Columbia University, and completed a postmaster’s clinical social work fellowship at the Yale University Child Study Center. She has been active in the field of international and transracial adoption as a community organizer, policy analyst, and researcher. Her work has focused on racial or ethnic and adoptive identity among transracial adoptees, adoptive parenting issues, adoption policy, birth search and reunion, global child welfare, and substitute care for orphans. She has published numerous essays in anthologies, books, media, and peer-reviewed journals.

KAREN SMITH ROTABI, PH.D., MSW, MPH, has worked in child welfare in a number of countries that include the United States, the United Kingdom, Belize, and Guatemala. She focuses on child protection responses and family support, emphasizing prevention and social policy. Along with Judith Gibbons, Rotabi edited Intercountry Adoption: Policies, Practices, and Outcomes (Ashgate Press, 2012). Rotabi is an associate professor of social work at the United Arab Emirates University. Her publications can be found at https://unc.academia.edu/KarenSmithRotabi.

CARMEN MÓNICO, PH.D., MSW, MS, is assistant professor at Elon University’s Human Service Studies. Her dissertation research inquired experiences of Guatemalan women whose children were abducted and trafficked for intercountry adoption. Together with Karen Rotabi, she analyzed practices of search and family reunion of “disappeared” children during El Salvador civil war. Her full biography is available online at http://www.elon.edu/directories/profile/?user=cmonico.

AMY GRIFFIN, PH.D., MSW, is a currently a Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) and American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Congressional Fellow in the office of U.S. Senator Al Franken. She completed her doctorate in social work at Boston College. Dr. Griffin’s research focuses on dually involved youth, a population of youth who are involved in both the juvenile justice and child welfare systems. Additional research projects and articles have included transracial adoptions, home evaluations for prospective adopters, and multimethods research. Dr. Griffin graduated with a B.A. in psychology from Boston College and then received her MSW from the School of Social Policy and Practice at the University of Pennsylvania.

DEVON BROOKS, PH.D., MSW, is an associate professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Southern California. He served previously as associate dean for faculty affairs and as chair of the faculty. He earned his Ph.D. and MSW from the School of Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley, and his B.A. in psychology from George Mason University. Dr. Brooks’s research interests revolve around foster care and adoption, child maltreatment, and public child welfare organizations. Particular areas of research interest include transracial adoption, lesbian and gay adoption, engagement, and child welfare organizational capacity and professional development. Other areas of interest and scholarship pertain to diversity, intersectionality, and intercultural competence and to distance education and training. Dr. Brooks teaches MSW and doctoral courses both in the classroom and virtually. He typically teaches courses on research, human behavior, diversity, and sexual orientation. He codeveloped and coteaches a global immersion course on social innovation, engagement, and impact and has provided group-based field instruction. Additionally, Dr. Brooks is heavily involved in curriculum development, implementation and evaluation, and in reaffirmation and reaccreditation. Other teaching and curricular areas of interests revolve around program, course, and syllabus development; student professional competencies and learning outcomes; distance education and continuing professional development; faculty mentoring; and academic integrity. Dr. Brooks has served on numerous committees at the University of Southern California and within the School of Social Work, as well as on professional organizations, including the Council on Social Work Education, the Society for Social Work Research, the National Association of Social Workers, and the National Association of Black Social Workers. He consults, presents, and publishes widely. Currently, Dr. Brooks is working on two books—one on intercultural social work practice, education, and research and the other on social work assessment, evaluation, and research.

DONI WHITSETT, PH.D., LCSW is a clinical professor and the associate director of faculty development at the University of Southern California (USC) School of Social Work. She earned her doctoral degree in social work from USC and her MSW from Case Western Reserve University. Treating individuals, couples, and families, her clinical practice experience spans more than four decades. Dr. Whitsett’s teaching, research, and practice interests include trauma, human sexuality, and cult-related issues. Over her 20 years at the USC School of Social Work, Dr. Whitsett has taught both foundation and advanced courses in practice, behavior, and mental health both in the classroom and virtually. She taught the human sexuality course required for licensure for mental health practitioners in California for more than 15 years and currently teaches an elective on human sexuality at the School of Social Work. She regularly provides leadership in the courses she teaches and to the numerous curriculum committees on which she serves. Dr. Whitsett is a coinvestigator on a grant titled Sexual Functioning in the Military. Dr. Whitsett has published in professional journals and has been an invited speaker and presented nationally and internationally on trauma, cult-related topics, and online education. She helped to organize two conferences in Australia and has taught mental health courses in China.

JEREMY T. GOLDBACH, PH.D., joined the University of Southern California (USC) School of Social Work in 2012 after completing both his M.A. and Ph.D. in social work at the University of Texas at Austin (UT-Austin). His dissertation, “Toward the Prevention of High Risk Behavior in Sexual Minority Adolescents,” explored the relationship between minority stress and marijuana use by lesbian, gay, and bisexual adolescents. His work at UT-Austin was funded through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, specializing in prevention science. He currently holds funding through the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development for psychometric instrument development (2014–2016) and through the Trevor Project, to explore suicidality among LGBTQ adolescents (2015–2016). Dr. Goldbach has been funded by the National Institutes of Health Clinical and Translational Science Institute to pilot an intervention for Latino youth and families, and through the Zumberge Small Grant program to explore stress and behavioral health outcomes in racially and ethnically diverse lesbian, gay, and bisexual adolescents. Dr. Goldbach currently serves as project evaluator with the National Association of Social Workers HIV/AIDS Spectrum: Mental Health Training and Education of Social Workers Project. His practice background includes both clinical and community organizing. Before returning for his doctoral education, Goldbach oversaw a large community-organizing project in Texas that funded thirty-two community coalitions to reduce substance use concerns through environmental, policy-based strategy. His teaching interests include direct social work practice, human behavior, and research with vulnerable populations.

BRUCE D. PERRY, M.D., PH.D., is the senior fellow of the ChildTrauma Academy, a nonprofit organization based in Houston, Texas, and adjunct professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago. He serves as the inaugural senior fellow of the Berry Street Childhood Institute, an Australian-based center of excellence focusing on the translation of theory into practice to improve the lives of children. Dr. Perry is the author, with Maia Szalavitz, of The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog, a bestselling book based on his work with maltreated children and Born for Love: Why Empathy Is Essential and Endangered. His most recent multimedia book, BRIEF: Reflections on Childhood, Trauma and Society was released in 2013. Over the past 30 years, Dr. Perry has been an active teacher, clinician, and researcher in children’s mental health and the neurosciences holding a variety of academic positions. Dr. Perry has conducted both basic neuroscience and clinical research. His neuroscience research has examined the effects of prenatal drug exposure on brain development, the neurobiology of human neuropsychiatric disorders, the neurophysiology of traumatic life events, and basic mechanisms related to the development of neurotransmitter receptors in the brain. This work has examined the cognitive, behavioral, emotional, social, and physiological effects of neglect and trauma in children, adolescents, and adults. This work has been instrumental in describing how childhood experiences, including neglect and traumatic stress, change the biology of the brain—and, thereby, the health of the child. His clinical research over the past 10 years has been focused on integrating emerging principles of developmental neuroscience into clinical practice. This work has resulted in the development of innovative clinical practices and programs working with maltreated and traumatized children, most prominently the Neurosequential Model©, a developmentally sensitive, neurobiology-informed approach to clinical work (NMT), education (NME), and caregiving (NMC). Dr. Perry is the author of more than 500 journal articles, book chapters, and scientific proceedings and is the recipient of numerous professional awards and honors, including the T. Berry Brazelton Infant Mental Health Advocacy Award, the Award for Leadership in Public Child Welfare, the Alberta Centennial Medal, and the 2014 Kohl Education Prize. Dr. Perry was an undergraduate at Stanford University and Amherst College. He attended medical and graduate school at Northwestern University, receiving both M.D. and Ph.D. degrees. Dr. Perry completed a residency in general psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine and a fellowship in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Chicago.

ERIN HAMBRICK, PH.D., is the ChildTrauma Academy’s Inaugural Robin Fancourt Research Fellow. She was awarded her Ph.D. in Clinical Child Psychology from the University of Kansas in August 2014, following a predoctoral internship in pediatric health psychology at Children’s Hospital, Colorado. Currently, she is a National Institute of Mental Health T32 Research Fellow through the University of Colorado School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry. As part of this 2-year research fellowship, she is conducting research with the Kempe Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect and the University of Denver Graduate School of Social Work. During this fellowship she is coleading skills groups for Fostering Healthy Futures, an intervention being implemented at Aurora Community Mental Health Center. Dr. Hambrick’s clinical interests include working with youth exposed to maltreatment or other forms of trauma (e.g., disaster, traumatic grief, medical trauma). She is particularly interested in the role of relational and strengths-based interventions, including mentoring interventions, for maltreated youth. She is trained in several evidence-based and evidence-informed interventions, such as Parent-Child Interaction Therapy, Psychological First Aid, and Fostering Healthy Futures. Dr. Hambrick’s research interests include implementation of evidence-based treatments for maltreated youth and for youth affected by disaster. She currently studies the developmental impact of chronic maltreatment and trauma. She has published several research articles on risk and resilience in children following adversity, and on implementation of evidence-based interventions.

ROBERT PERRY, B.S., is serving as the Robin Fancourt Fellow of the ChildTrauma Academy, a nonprofit organization in Houston, Texas. In this capacity, he conducts both clinical and preclinical neuroscience research. His most recent project is a comparison of neuroimaging (SPECT) with the heuristic functional brain maps created using the web-based neurosequential model of therapeutics (NMT) assessment process. Additional projects include the development of analysis algorithms for the ChildTrauma Academy’s core clinical data set that will allow more in-depth examination of the impact of developmental adversity on a range of brain-mediated functions, and examination of the inter-rater reliability and fidelity of the NMT metrics across multiple clinical sites. Mr. Perry is a graduate of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill where he earned a B.S. in biology and psychology. He previously has worked as a clinical intern at the psychiatric residential treatment facility of the Alexander Youth Network in Charlotte, North Carolina, and as a research assistant for the ChildTrauma Academy. His research interests include the epigenetics of adversity, molecular mechanisms involved in various aspects of the stress response, neuroplasticity, and developmental neurobiology.

ELLEN E. PINDERHUGHES, PH.D., is associate professor in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development, Tufts University. Her research focuses on contextual and cultural influences on family socialization processes among culturally diverse families, particularly those raising children at risk for problems in development. She coedited (with H. N. Le) a special issue of Applied Developmental Science focused on culture, context, and parenting processes. She is one of several principal investigators of Fast Track, one of the National Institute of Mental Health’s largest longitudinal prevention trials, which has been following more than 1,100 youth living in high-risk communities for more than 20 years. As an adoption researcher, she has published on readjustment processes among families adopting children from foster care as well as on transracial international adoptive families and their navigation of cultural and racial differences, in particular, ethnic–racial socialization and ethnic identity. As a senior research associate with the Adoption Institute, she coauthored a study of practices of adoption professionals and experiences of adoptive parents concerning international adoption and the impact of the Hague Adoption Convention on the Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption. She served on the Institute of Medicine Committee on Child Maltreatment and is on the editorial board of Adoption Quarterly.

JESSICA A. K. MATTHEWS, B.A., is currently a doctoral student in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development working with Professor Ellen Pinderhughes. While attending the University of California, Berkeley, Matthews majored in psychology and political science where she became interested in adoption. Matthews has been studying adoption, international adoption in particular, for the past 10 years. Now at Tufts University, she is pursuing her Ph.D. in applied child development focusing on early emotion regulation, identity formation, and the ethnic-racial socialization of international adoptees. Additional research interests include the complexities of transracial adoption, special needs adoption, and the development of children who do not regularly experience parental care worldwide.

XIAN ZHANG, M.S., is a doctoral student in Eliot Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development at Tufts University. She obtained her B.S. in psychology and M.S. in psychoanalytic developmental psychology from University College London, England. She currently works with Dr. Ellen Pinderhughes in the Adoption and Development Project as a lab leader. Her research interests include cultural socialization and identity development in children from transracial adoptive families and immigrant families.

AMANDA L. BADEN, PH.D., is an associate professor in the Department of Counseling and Educational Leadership at Montclair State University in New Jersey. She was the recipient of the John D. Black Award in 2014 from the American Psychological Association and Division 17 (Counseling Psychology) for the Outstanding Practice of Counseling Psychology. She is a senior research fellow of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, a member of the State Board of Psychology for New York State, on the editorial board for Adoption Quarterly and the Journal of Social Distress and the Homeless, and cochair of Biennial Adoption Initiative Conferences in New York City held at St. John’s University. She is an adult adoptee from Hong Kong and her experiences both personally and professionally have lead her to focus her research and clinical practice on adoption triad members, transracial and international adoption issues, racial and cultural identity, and multicultural counseling competence. She has a clinical practice in Manhattan.

JONATHAN R. MAZZA, M.A., currently works as a crisis clinician in the emergency department at Morristown Medical Center in New Jersey. Jonathan received his M.A. in community counseling and has diverse clinical experience in the follow areas: psychiatric inpatient, crisis intervention services, homeless and at-risk youth agency, intensive outpatient, and medical psychiatric liaison. Mazza has presented on adoption research at numerous national and regional conferences, was a committee member for the Adoption Initiative organization, and helped coordinate two inspiring adoption conferences in New York City. Jonathan also was an editorial assistant for the Journal of Counselor Preparation and Supervision and was a graduate assistant at Montclair State University working under Dr. Amanda Baden and Dr. Edina Renfro-Michel.

ANDREW KITCHEN, M.A., is currently a psychiatric clinical screener at Trinitas Regional Medical Center in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Andrew received his B.A. in psychology and M.A. in community counseling at Montclair State University. He is currently a licensed associate counselor in the State of New Jersey. Andrew is an international adult adoptee, who was adopted from South Korea at the age of 6 months. He continues to work with a team of research assistants lead by his former professor, Dr. Amanda Baden, to continue to advocate for and improve the clinical treatment of adoptees within the mental health community. Kitchen has presented on adoption research at St. John’s University, Rutgers University, and the 2014 American Psychological Association Conference in Washington, DC.