‘Contact Between Adoptive and Birth Families: What Works?’ Conference at UMass Amherst on April 11 and 12

AMHERST, Mass. – Adoption researchers from around the world, with practice professionals and adoptive families will gather on Thursday and Friday, April 11 and 12, for the fifth annual New Worlds of Adoption Conference at the University of Massachusetts Amherst to explore the theme,“Contact between Adoptive and Birth Parents: What Works?”   

 

The 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. conference will meet in the Student Union Ballroom and is open to all interested families, practitioners, researchers, school staff and policy makers.

 

More than 200 people are expected to attend the forum, which will offer workshops and lectures by more than 40 experts from across the country and England, Spain, Canada and Korea. They will discuss contact issues in domestic infant, child welfare and international adoptions, legal and other issues relating to contact between adoptive and birth parents and the role of social media in searching for birth parents, among other topics. First-hand accounts from young adults, adoptive parents and birth parents will be presented.

 

UMass Amherst’s Rudd Adoption Research Program sponsors the national conference to highlight new adoption research, says program director and conference chair Harold Grotevant. “Growing numbers of adoptions involve some form of contact between the child’s adoptive family and birth relatives. This has become especially common in domestic infant adoptions, but it is also a key consideration in adoptions from the public child welfare system, and increasingly in international adoptions.”   

 

UMass Amherst is one of only a few academic institutions with a comprehensive research and teaching program on adoption. Its goals are to link adoption research with policy and practice to develop synergy among scientists, practitioners and policy makers from varied disciplines. 

 

General admission for both days is $195 before March 28, $95 for students and senior citizens. For more information call 413/545-4631 or to register, go to umass.edu/adoption conference.

 

In addition to the Rudd Adoption Research Program, Center for Research on Families, Department of Psychology, Psychological Services Center, College of Natural Sciences and College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at UMass Amherst, other sponsors include the Donaldson Adoption Institute, Massachusetts Department of Children and Families and the Boston College Graduate School of Social Work.