Friends, I have a dream but I need to know if I’m alone in it. My dream is to organize a conference for adult adoptees. There are so many conferences focused on adoption, orphans, and even conferences focused on birth mothers but there is not one conference that I am aware of that is strictly for all adult adoptees that focuses on what happens when the child adoptee grows up. Thanks to the Lost Daughters creation of the #flipthescript movement, adult adoptees began to speak up about how adoption affected them. I have found a lot more friends through this movement and I have learned so much about the myriad of emotions and situations that we all navigate. I think we all learned from each other and through it, we found support and love.
What do we do with all of that support and love and how do we take it to another level? I have an ideal how: We come together in one place to meet each other, to laugh with each other, to cry with each other and most importantly, to heal with each other. I want to hold a conference FOR adoptees, BY adoptees. However, we wouldn’t just get together; this conference could accomplish so much more.
My vision for this conference would be the largest gathering of adult adoptees this world has ever seen. In this two day conference, we would begin with a welcome reception that will allow us to socialize, get to know one another and end with a memorial service where we release lighted lanterns for the loss of our first families. The 2nd day would include workshops and seminars on topics such as searching, reunion, adoption legislation reform, and healing. I have a list of speakers I’d like to invite and have a panel of first mothers from different eras to discuss the differing circumstances they faced when they made the decision to relinquish their children and then a Q&A session.
I want to hold this event in Washington DC in November (get it? National Adoption Month). The location is strategic, as I want this to gain national media attention. Obviously, the legislators are in Washington DC and this is the perfect opportunity to educate them on the positive changes we want to make in adoption. We could even have a goal of getting the 100,000 names on the petition to President Obama for opening sealed birth records for all states and deliver that petition during the conference! The possibilities are limitless. We can make real change by doing this together.
If this conference were successful, we could do it annually and in different locations every year across the country. This would give each of us a serious support network with an unbreakable bond; we could be our own family. The emotions we would break through together would bring so much comfort to so many of us.
I am somewhat new to this community but I do have significant conference planning and execution experience working for a multi-billion dollar industry. I also have experience in marketing and public relations so I do know what this takes. As you can imagine, this would be a huge undertaking and there are several things I would need to do in preparation. Before I go down this long road, I need to know that there is an adequate interest in attending this conference. Please either comment your thoughts and/or interest or email me at adopteesearchingforself@gmail.
This has the potential to be life-changing for all of us so I hope that there is enough interest! Thanks to each of you! xoxo