Adoption is a lifelong journey, and parents often need a compassionate, knowledgeable thought partner and advisor along the way. Do you have questions related to adoption and your family that you need to discuss in depth? Are you feeling overwhelmed by all the information or advice you’ve gathered? A one-on-one adoption consultation with one of Pact’s team of professionals can help you move forward. You can talk to a Pact consultant about:

• Difficulty talking to your child about their adoption
• Trying to understand the connections between adoption, emotions, and behavior
• Parenting in the context of adoption—how is it different?
• Hopes and/or fears related to contacting your child’s first/birth family and/or adoptive family
• Navigating open adoption relationships, including extended family members
• How you’re experiencing the intersections of adoption, race, and socioeconomic class
• Issues of adoption and race coming up in your transracial adoptive family

One-hour adoption consultations are available to adoptive parents across the country. You can register for a single consultation or a five-hour package. In person or by phone, we are available to help. Pact membership required; join Pact today.

Pact is nationally known for the in-depth, thoughtful preparation it provides to prospective parents who are considering adopting across race, whether domestically or internationally (our program fulfills the Hague education requirements for international adoptions). At Pact, we believe that for transracial adoption to work, parents must examine their own racial identities and biases and commit to their child’s need to build a positive racial identity of their own. Pact doesn’t subscribe to the “colorblind” or “love is enough” approach; we know race matters and that parents who are adopting across racial lines must commit to making changes in their own lives in order to support their children. We work with you to create a plan for how to examine and challenge your own racial identity and racial biases, become an anti-racist individual/family, bring more diversity into your personal and community circles, nurture a positive racial identity in a child of color, and recognize the racism your child will face. To experience Pact’s full transracial adoption preparation program, sign up for a five-hour consultation package, which will include personalized consultations, reading assignments, and self-reflection exercises. Pact membership required; join Pact today.

In closed adoptions, adoptees and parents often have questions about birth family (or vice versa) that result in the decision to search for them. Even in adoptions that begin with openness, family members can lose touch or struggle to remain connected. We know that adoptees who have little or no information or contact with their birth family grow up feeling something is missing, feeling confused about where they came from—and feeling it would be a betrayal of their adoptive family, whom they love, to ask questions or seek information about their birth family.

Whether you are an adoptee, first/birth parent, or adoptive parent, we can help you make a plan, gather information, and search for and often find relatives. We can also provide counseling and support AFTER a successful search, during the fraught period when families are figuring out how to establish relationships when love is mixed with fear, uncertainty, and big emotional reactions. You can consult to Pact to:

• Research and read adoption files to determine if there is enough information to find birth or adoptive family members
• Create a plan for how to approach a found family member
• Serve as an intermediary to facilitate a new relationship
• Sort through the feelings that arise as a renewed relationship unfolds
• Prepare a child for a first meeting with members of their birth family

Pact membership required; join Pact today. Pact’s fees do not include private investigation costs.

Pact offers specialized consultations for those interested in Placing a Child for Adoption or Adopting a Child.

Are you looking for an adoption-sensitive therapist of color to work with your child or family? Learn more about our Center for Race and Adoption Focused Therapy.

 Are you affiliated with an organization or group seeking a customized consultation, presentation, or workshop about adoption, race, and family? Contact education@pactadopt.org to inquire about bringing Pact’s experts to you.