In light of the Frontline (PBS) documentary, South Korea’s Adoption Reckoning, and The Associated Press articles about Korean adoption and China’s decision to end its intercountry adoption program—countries which represent two of the largest numbers of intercountry adoptees in the United States—IAMAdoptee convened a group of thought leaders to discuss these major developments.
Check out their conversation below; the full transcript can be found here.
Participant Bios
Kathy Sacco, MSW currently works as the Vice President, International Children’s Policy at First Focus on Children. Prior to First Focus, Kathy worked for nearly eight years at the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Children’s Issues, shaping and leading policies related to child protection, intercountry adoption, and international parental child abduction. Previously, she facilitated foster care and intercountry adoptions for 13 years. In her work on various agency boards, Kathy advocated for ethical adoption practices and the expansion of post adoption services. Kathy is on the board of IAMAdoptee.
Instagram: @first_focus | Facebook: First Focus on Children | Website: www.firstfocus.org
Grace Newton, LMSW, is a PhD student at the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice at the University of Chicago, where she studies transracial and transnational adoption. Prior to beginning her PhD, Grace worked as a public adoptions social worker in Wisconsin, and even before that, she started her critical adoption blog, Red Thread Broken, which she has authored for more than a decade. For more information please visit: www.redthreadbroken.com.
Instagram: @redthreadbroken, @adopteeconsciousnessmodel | Facebook: Red Thread Broken |Twitter: @gracepinghua |Website: www.redthreadbroken.com, www.adopteeconsciousnessmodel.com
Kim Warner-Hudy, LCSW, has been working professionally in the child welfare field since 1996. She is a licensed clinical social worker in the state of Tennessee and Michigan. Kim has been in private practice since 2019 as a therapist focusing on adoption, attachment and racial identity working with persons of all ages; mainly adoptees.
Email: [email protected] | Website: Kim Warner-Hudy, Clinical Social Work/Therapist, LCSW
Resources
General
- “Out of the Fog and Into Consciousness: A Model of Adoptee Awareness” (International Body Psychotherapy Journal, 2023)
- “The trauma and healing of consciousness” (Child Abuse & Neglect, 2022)
China
- “China’s halt of foreign adoptions leaves questions about pending cases” (The Associated Press, 2024)
- Outsourced Children: Orphanage Care and Adoption in Globalizing China, Leslie K. Wang (Stanford University Press, 2016)
- “End of an Era: China’s International Adoption Program” (The Nanchang Project Blog, 2024)
South Korea
- In the Matter of Cha Jung Hee, Deann Borshay Liem (2010)
- To Save the Children of Korea: The Cold War Origins of International Adoption, Arissa H. Oh (Stanford University Press, 2015)
- “Widespread adoption fraud separated generations of Korean children from their families, AP finds” (The Associated Press, 2024)
- “Western nations were desperate for Korean babies. Now many adoptees believe they were stolen” (The Associated Press, 2024)
- “South Korea adoptees endure emotional, sometimes devastating searches for their birth families” (The Associated Press, 2024)
- “Did this happen to me also? Korean adoptees question their past and ask how to find their families” (The Associated Press, 2024)
- South Korea’s Adoption Reckoning, Frontline (PBS) & The Associated Press (2024)