People with Care Experience
(adoption & foster care)
Adults with care experience in adoption & foster care are on a search to find self.
Want to find community and help?
The tools and resources of The Adoptee Collective are designed from the adoptee’s point of view, to validate their voice as their story unfolds and they discover who they are meant to become.
Kara Donaldson, adult adoptee and co-founder of The Adoptee Collective, manages this page and all content.
To you, beloved, from Kara:
You are loved.
You are wanted.
You are cared for.
You are cherished and adored.
You are precious.
You are taken care of.
You have a place here.
You belong.
You have a home.
You are safe.
You are seen and heard.
You are known.
You are strong and courageous, and braver than you think.
You are wonderful just the way you are right now.
You have a kind heart and will mature to become a great adult.
You are gifted and talented.
You will do great things.
You are capable.
You are victorious.
You are blessed.
You are God’s creation.
Excerpt from the dedication page of My Story Book , a therapeutic workbook to help adoptees & foster youth capture and preserve their own life story.
Find support 24/7, call 988 for the US Suicide and Crisis Hotline.
Validation
We are all looking for validation in some form or another, in one way or another. For an adult adoptee, validation means affirmation that an abnormally hard, uncontrolled life-altering event happened at the very beginning of life; that something is the way it shouldn’t have been and our community sees and empathizes this, even if it’s not understood. From one adoptee to another, your feelings are valid. Your emotions are welcome, and your story is important.
Belonging
Life may have taken a challenging turn at one point in time for you as an adoptee. Support from your surrounding community, whoever that may be, is vital to growing into healing and wholeness. Feeling heard and accepted, while genuinely knowing you are loved and wanted is a game changer. Your sense of belonging and connection to something beyond yourself means that someone else probably expressed care for you that hopefully, we can demonstrate to other adoptees along the way.
Community
Fellow adoptee, you are not alone. You’re not alone in your grief, fears, wishing it was another way, or experience. You’ve endured a great loss, and some of us here can relate. Though we may not walk in the same shoes, we can be each others advocates, cheerleaders, and family. We must champion one another onward and help each other foster a greater sense of felt safety, healthy identity, and healing. Friend, we hope you find a little more community here as you journey ahead towards deeper fellowship.
My Story Book: My Life Story by Me and for Me
The cornerstone resource from The Adoptee Collective
Baby books and case files can’t tell a life story.
My Story Book is our innovative workbook and cornerstone resource.
My Story Book helps you capture & preserve your own story, in your own words, for your own sake, based on concepts of life story work.
My Story Book is available on Amazon, in both a Kid’s Edition for ages 5-14, with essentially the same content in an Adult Edition for ages 14 and up.
My Story Book is available in Spanish.
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Lifelong Impact Guide
Download this free 4-page infoguide containing evidence based research on the lifelong impact of adoption and foster care.
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Trauma Information Guide
How does trauma impact a person? Brain research has brought to light the ways that trauma can impact a person holistically .
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Felt Safety Guide
What is felt safety and why does it matter? Download this free guide to learn more about the impact of care experience and how building felt safety is important.
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Adoptee Centeredness Guide
Adoptee Centeredness must be the standard of care for all adoption and foster parenting and practice. Learn more with our free guide.
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Adult Reading List
Check out our list of recommended reads featuring books by those with lived experiences in adoption and foster care on topics such as trauma and coping.
Trauma + Sensory Processing Dysfunction
Turn Down the Music: Connecting Trauma and Sensory Process Dysfunction
Did you know? Aversions and strong preferences on taste, texture, sound, and sights
can be directly linked to trauma experienced through adoption and foster care.
We’re honored to offer these 3 free and brief videos from the Capstone Project of Elizabeth McCann, OTS, through Baylor University toward her Doctorate in Occupational Therapy. Learn, self-reflect, and gain simple strategies to improve daily functioning.
What is Sensory Processing?
Understanding Your Sensory Styles
Simple Strategies to Help Functioning
Additional Free Resource
Download our free Daily Sensory Self-Care Log to help you create healthy daily habits for emotional regulation and sensory processing.
Made available through the work of Elizabeth McCann, OTS, through Baylor University’s Occupational Therapy Doctorate program.
RESOURCES
Biological/Birth Parent History Forms
We’ve created forms available for free download in order to help ask questions and gather information about your biological/birth history. These packets include:
Medical History Form
Get to Know Me Form
Relationship History Form
Adoptee Competent Resources
Explore these Adoptee Competent resources for the trauma healing journey.
Click on the image above to access the Adoptee Therapist Directory if you are looking for a provider:
“This directory includes licensed U.S. mental health professionals who identify as adoptees and work with adoptees / adoptive families in a variety of public and private settings. Only providers who have voluntarily submitted their information have been listed.
To search for providers internationally, visit ICAV's Post-Adoption Support page.”
Click on the image above to access the Adoptee Recommended Resources:
“Adoptees Connect is a peer-led, adoptee-centric connect group for adult adoptees. Jarring statistics of adoptees attempting suicide 4x more than non-adoptees as well as prisons, jails, treatment facilities and mental health facilities being overpopulated with adoptees, makes our mission all the more vital. Our hope is that our mission will ultimately help to counteract with these staggering statistics.”
Click on the image above to learn more about the Adoptees Connect Community:
We aren’t designed to walk our journeys alone.
“We all need support every now and then. Connecting with other Adult Adoptees who understand is a life changing experience. Even if they are at different stages of their adoption journey, they’ll understand what it is you’re going through and be able to give you the encouragement you need to keep going.”
Resources about Early Trauma
Scientific research now proves that early trauma impacts both body and brain. Learning more about trauma can unlock healing and understanding of how you’ve been changed by your life experiences.
