Our Team

Kara is the Founder and Executive Director of The Adoptee Collective. She practices Neurofeedback and is a TBRI® Practitioner with Kids Alive International. Based in Nairobi, Kenya, she is also completing her Master’s in Marriage and Family Therapy. Relinquished at birth and adopted in a same-race, domestic adoption in the U.S., Kara is passionate about helping adoptees live with a deep sense of felt safety—despite the impacts of early separation and the dominant societal narratives that often shape adoption.

She hopes that prospective adoptive parents, caregivers, and clinicians will become more adoptee-centered and trauma-informed by recognizing that being adopted comes with lifelong impact. A lot of adoptees deal with core issues like loss, rejection, shame and guilt, grief, identity, intimacy, and control (Silverstein & Roszia, 2019). These can show up as attachment struggles, anxiety, depression, fear, sensory sensitivities, attention issues, or even thoughts of suicide—sometimes even when adoption happened in infancy. Kara believes healing comes through therapeutic support, faith practice, connection with fellow adoptees, and the care of trusted adoptee allies. Everyone deserves to feel safe, supported, and like they truly belong.