
Lifelong Learning

Adoption is a lifelong journey—there is always more to learn. Ready to deepen your understanding of the complex intersections of adoption, family, and race? Pact is here for you. Prospective adopters, adoptive parents and first/birth parents and their extended family members, adult adoptees, community members, and adoption professionals are all welcome and encouraged to participate in our education programs. Our webinars and conferences draw on 30+ years of experience pioneering an honest, child-centered, anti-racist approach to adoption, as well as the latest emerging research.
Webinars
Expand your knowledge from the comfort and convenience of your own home or office, anywhere in the United States. All webinars (both live and pre-recorded) cost $38.50 each. A 20% discount is available for Pact members. Join Pact today.
Live Webinars:
Looking for an interactive experience? Live webinars allow you to participate in discussion and pose questions to Pact experts and guest speakers. See Events to browse and register for upcoming webinars.
Pre-Recorded Content:
What you want to know, when you need to know it. Once you purchase a webinar, you will receive access by 5:00pm Pacific Time the next business day.
Voices of the Triad: Adoptees
Do you want to deepen your knowledge of adoption by learning from the foremost experts? Pact firmly believes that adopted people—not adoptive parents—are the first, most important voices to hear from about the experience of being adopted. In this webinar, adopted adults of color share parts of their lifelong adoption journey.
Target audience: All triad members and professionals.
Subject categories: Adoptee Voices/Adoptee Identity, Talking About Adoption
Lead Speaker: Katie Wynen
2022
Voices of the Triad: Young Adoptees
Target audience: All triad members and professionals.
Subject categories: Adoptee Voices/Adoptee Identity, Talking About Adoption
Lead Speaker: Susan Dusza Guerra Leksander
2022
Voices of the Triad: First/Birth Parents
Target audience: All triad members and professionals.
Subject categories: First/Birth Parents, Talking About Adoption
Lead Speaker: Susan Dusza Guerra Leksander
2022
Voices of the Triad: Adoptive Parents
Target audience: Adoptive parents.
Subject categories: Adoptive Parenting, Talking About Adoption
Lead Speaker: Beth Hall
2022
Should We or Shouldn’t We? Considering Open Adoption
Target audience: Prospective adoptive parents and expectant parents.
Subject categories: Preparing to Adopt, Open Adoption, Adoptive Parenting
Lead Speaker: Susan Dusza Guerra Leksander
2021
Dear Expectant Parent Letter
Target audience: Prospective adoptive parents.
Subject categories: Open Adoption, Preparing to Adopt
Lead Speaker: Beth Hall
2021
Invisible Adoptions
Target audience: Current or prospective adoptive parents of color with same-race families.
Lead Speaker: Malaika Parker
2018
Blended Families: A Conversation
Target audience: All triad members and professionals.
Subject categories: Siblings, Talking About Adoption, Adoptive Parenting
Lead Speaker: Malaika Parker
2022
Siblings in Adoption: A Conversation about Managing the Many Connections
Siblings can have many complicated relationships with adoption: Growing up with both adopted and non-adopted siblings; siblings who are adopted with different levels of birth family contact; siblings by birth growing up in different families through birth and/or adoption; found siblings; siblings placed together and/or in different families. Join a conversation with adoptees and parents (by birth and adoption) who have lived experience with sibling relationships both in their adoptive and birth families and what they have found helpful in navigating them. This triad-expansive conversation will offer insight and explorations of the many different relationships found in the unique complexity of adoption.
Target audience: pre-adoptive parents, adoptive parents, birth/first parents and adoption professionals.
Subject categories: Siblings, Talking About Adoption
Lead Speaker: Susan DG Leksander
2022
Adoption… It’s Complicated! Raising Awareness for Service Providers
Target audience: Professionals working with pregnant people and birth parents.
Subject categories: Talking About Adoption, Ethics in Adoption
Lead Speaker: Susan Dusza Guerra Leksander
2019
Real Talk About Child Welfare Reform and the Calls to Abolish It
Target audience: Adoption professionals.
Subject categories: Ethics in Adoption
Lead Speaker: Christina Feliciana
2021
Newborns, Money, and Desperate Competition: Ethical Challenges in Infant Adoption
Target audience: All triad members and professionals.
Subject categories: Ethics in Adoption
Lead Speaker: Susan Dusza Guerra Leksander
2021
Working with Pre- and Post-Adoptive Parents of Color: Insights for Professionals
Target audience: Adoption professionals.
Subject categories: Preparing to Adopt, Talking About Adoption
Lead Speaker: Malaika Parker
2021
What to Expect: At the Hospital
Target audience: Prospective adoptive parents and expectant parents.
Subject categories: Preparing to Adopt, Talking About Adoption, Adoptive Parenting
Lead Speaker: Beth Hall
2020
Living Open Adoption: Practical Guidance for Making It Work
Target audience: Adoptive parents and first/birth parents.
Subject categories: Open Adoption, Adoptive Parenting
Lead Speaker: Lori Holden
2019
Art of Attachment: Using Sensory Strategies as a Key to Connection
Target audience: Adoptive parents, professionals.
Subject categories: Attachment, Trauma-Informed Parenting
Lead Speaker: Laura Anderson
2019
Introducing the Adoption Conversation
Target audience: Adoptive parents.
Subject categories: Talking About Adoption, Adoptive Parenting
Lead Speaker: Beth Hall
2020
Attachment: Welcoming Baby
Target audience: Adoptive parents.
Subject categories: Attachment, Preparing to Adopt, Trauma-Informed Parenting
Lead Speaker: Beth Hall
2021
Adoptive-Sensitive Language and Rituals
Target audience: All triad members and professionals.
Subject categories: Adoption Rituals and Holiday Celebrations, Ethics in Adoption, Talking About Adoption
Lead Speaker: Katie Wynen
2021
Talking With Children about Adoption
Target audience: Prospective and current adoptive parents, expectant parents, first/birth parents.
Subject categories: Talking About Adoption
Lead Speaker: Malaika Parker
2021
Parents of Color: Talking to Children about Race and Racism
Target audience: Adoptive parents of color.
Subject categories: Race and Adoption
Lead Speaker: Malaika Parker
2021
Challenging Class Privilege in Adoption
Target audience: All triad members and professionals.
Subject categories: Race and Adoption, Ethics in Adoption
Lead Speaker: Malaika Parker
2020
Transracial Adoption for Parents of Color
Target audience: Prospective adoptive parents of color considering transracial adoption.
Subject categories: Transracial Adoption, Race and Adoption
Lead Speaker: Malaika Parker
2020
Transracial Adoption: A Developmental Approach
Target audience: Prospective or current transracial adoptive parents.
Subject categories: Transracial Adoption, Adoptive Parenting, Trauma-Informed Parenting, Talking About Adoption
Lead Speaker: Katie Wynen
2020
Dear White People: Antiracist Adoptive Parenting
Target audience: White adoptive parents.
Subject categories: Race and Adoption, Ethics in Adoption, Transracial Adoption
Lead Speaker: Beth Hall
2021
Schools and Adoption: Strategies for Parents
Children learn much more than reading and math in school–they learn how the world operates beyond their own home. If they are lucky, they’re taught to search for commonality and to appreciate differences in their classmates and then in the people of the wider community. One of the ways kids are taught about the world and people around them is through assignments that focus on family. When these assignments are broadened purposefully to be inclusive and respectful of many diverse family models, children growing up in “non-standard” families can relax and learn. This webinar focuses on strategies for navigating school and supporting children who join their families through adoption.
Target audience: Adoptive parents.
Subject categories: Adoption and Schools, Race and Adoption, Talking About Adoption
Lead Speaker: Malaika Parker
2021
Interpreting Adopted Youth Behaviors
Target audience: Adoptive parents and professionals.
Subject categories: Trauma-Informed Parenting, Talking About Adoption
Lead Speaker: Beth Hall
2022
What to Expect 2-5: Adopted Pre-Schoolers
Target audience: Adoptive parents, first/birth parents.
Subject categories: Adoptive Parenting
Lead Speaker: Beth Hall
2019
What to Expect 6-9: Adopted School-Age Kids
Target audience: Adoptive parents, first/birth parents.
Subject categories: Adoptive Parenting, Adoption and Schools
Lead Speaker: Beth Hall
2020
What to Expect 10-12: Adopted Tweens
Target audience: Adoptive parents, first/birth parents.
Subject categories: Adoptive Parenting
Lead Speaker: Beth Hall
2019
What to Expect 13-18: Adopted Teens
Target audience: Adoptive parents, first/birth parents.
Subject categories: Adoptive Parenting
Lead Speaker: Beth Hall
2019
Adolescent Brain Development: Understanding Tweens and Teens
Target audience: Foster or adoptive parents of tweens and teens of color (ages 10-19).
Subject categories: Adoptive Parenting, Trauma-Informed Parenting, Talking About Adoption
Lead Speaker: Beth Hall
2022
Impact of Digital and Social Media in Adoption
Target audience: Adoptive parents.
Subject categories: Ethics in Adoption, Adoption and Schools, Talking About Adoption
Lead Speaker: Jamie Nunez
2020
Join Pact today to receive a member discount on both recorded and live webinars.
Conferences & Trainings
Pact sponsors two important conferences held annually in the San Francisco Bay Area:
California Adoption Conference
Co-sponsored by six Bay Area non-profit organizations, the California Adoption Conference is a two-day, comprehensive conference with numerous workshops and resources of interest to birth parents, prospective and current adoptive parents, foster parents, adult adoptees, former foster youth, non-adopted siblings, extended family, social workers, therapists, psychologists, teachers, and allies. Each day includes a keynote address followed by concurrent workshops that allow participants to find the learning opportunities that meet their needs. Topics include open adoption, transracial adoption, attachment, and searching for first/birth family. Speakers include birth/first parents, adopted adults, adoptive parents, adoption researchers, and activists.
Adoptive Parents of Color Collaborative (APCC) Convening:
Organized by Pact’s Adoptive Parents of Color Collaborative (APCC), this daylong educational and community-building event is created by and for adoptive parents of color (people of color who have adopted children). Adult programming focuses on the intersections of adoption, parenting, race, and child development, while simultaneous youth programming provides age-appropriate activities.
Trainings: Pact can design and deliver customized educational programming for organizations; contact education@pactadopt.org for more information.
Register for upcoming conferences on our Events page. Join Pact today to receive a member discount on conference fees.