14S700M Adoption - Looking Beneath the Surface
Mini Course (2-4 weeks) | This course has been canceled
Adoption has an impact on all generations in a family. But assumptions and practices involving adoption have radically changed in recent decades. Those affected by these changes include older people living now as adopted adults, adoptive parents, birth-parents who relinquished their children, and grandparents watching their adult children become adoptive parents. This altered culture of adoption can challenge the expectations and experiences of all those involved in the adoption process and through their lifetimes following an adoption.
This four session course will explore the evolution of adoption practices, touching on social history, politics, economics, and technology as determining factors. The psychology of adoption – especially the lived experience of those who know it from the inside – will be a focus of the course, through discussion by participants and with guest presenters, and selected reading.
There are no required textbooks for this course.
Judith Bush
is a graduate of Goucher College, and has Master’s degrees in French Literature from the University of Chicago and in Social Work from the Columbia University School of Social Work. She enjoys her current work in a counseling practice in Wilder. Judith’s personal experience with adoption includes becoming an adoptive parent 42 years ago, working professionally for many years with complex families, and developing post-adoption services and supports in Vermont.