Pound Pup Legacy

Inter-Country Adoptee Perspectives: Post Adoption Support Services

What Post Adoption Support Services are Needed and Why do you think this is Important?

© ICASN, November 2007

Firstly, being an adoptee I had a personal narrative that use to tell me constantly that I wasn't good enough, there was something wrong with me because my parents didn't want me, and I wasn't worthy enough to be loved. I carried around these thoughts for a long time. It wasn't until I spoke to counselors that I realized these were false beliefs.

I think parents need to realize the children they adopt come with a whole set of extra issues of having to assimilate into a foreign culture, not looking like your parents is a big deal, and no matter how hard they try - children are always going to feel different.

I think that having parent seminars tackling these issues would assist parents in better understanding their children. I also think that children should be made aware from an early age there are people they can talk to - possibly like some kind of mentor program with older adoptees who come from a similar culture and can talk with them about their experiences of alienation and inferiority. This would help both the children and the older adoptees to use their experiences to help each other.

Most importantly I think a free government funded counseling service should be offered to teenage and adoptees in their 20's as this is a critical time in our lives where we need the most support so we can attempt to fill the jigsaw puzzle of our lives with meaningful and factual information, that no longer tells us they we are unlovable human beings, instead will can be filled with hope and closure to know how we came to be where we are and that God has a grand plan for our lives but we may sometimes forget that, it can be lost in the confusion of life that can consume us....

This has been the most important lesson in my life.... realizing that i am truly deserving of all the good things that come my way and knowing that God is working miracles in my life because today i am proud of where i have come from and the path that my life is taking. It has only taken me 26 years to realize this fact. I have long doubted my sanity at times, however now after meeting my birth family, talking with counselors and my adoptive mum things some how seem a lot clearer.

I am a 26 year old Sri Lankan adoptee, currently undertaking university internship in Arusha, Tanzania, East Africa. (I will live in Sydney NSW Australia from February 2008.)

Gabbie