Call for Papers

We are pleased to invite professionals, researchers, scholars, practitioners, and graduate students to submit papers and research manuscripts that address issues likely to impact individuals and families touched by adoption for the sixth, biennial adoption conference at St. John’s University. Our first conference in 2000 was entitled, “The Adoption Journey: Psychological, Socio-Political, and Legal Challenges”; the second conference in 2002 focused on “The Lifelong Adoption Journey: Through the Eyes of the Adopted”; the 2004 conference was entitled, “The Dynamics of Adoption: A Three-Way Mirror;” the 2006 conference focused on “Families Without Borders? Adoption Across Culture and Race”; and the 2008 conference was entitled “Identity and the Adopted Teen: Surviving the Crucible of Adolescence.” In keeping with our goal to create conferences that address adoption themes relevant to the training of mental health professionals as well as to the personal growth and understanding of adoption triad members themselves, our sixth conference will focus on issues related to ethics of adoption in the 21st century.

The 2010 conference theme will highlight emerging changes in the practice of adoption since the start of the new century. The topics should include consideration of ethics and also address openness (or the lack thereof) in adoption. Thus topics might include discussions of search and reunion, third party reproduction adoption and openness to contact with donors and surrogates, GLBT adoptees and/or parents, contact between foster care providers and adoptive families, and clinical issues with various members of the triad, open records legislation and adoption reform, the Hague Convention and changes in international adoption, etc.

Examples for papers and sessions:

  • Challenges to creating openness in international and/or transracial adoption
  • Identity formation in an open versus closed adoption
  • Kinship care and the openness of birth relatives to kinship adoption
  • Maintaining or creating more openness between foster care families and adoptive families
  • Considerations of openness among siblings when one child is adopted and biological siblings remain with birth parents or stay in foster care
  • Adoption in a GLBT context (e.g., whether the individual is adopted by a gay/lesbian parent or whether the biological parents may be GLBT, or whether the adopted person identifies as GLBT)
  • The ethics of “fees for service” and the role of money in international adoption
  • Issues of search and reunion and how these issues influence openness in adoption
  • Nature vs. nurture in the adopted self identity
  • How contact between birth and adoptive families may change over time (e.g., from greater or lesser degrees of openness)
  • Treatment and assessment issues with adoptive families, adoptees, and birth families
  • Opening the triad to include non-adopted children in adoptive families, siblings still in foster care, and others not traditionally included in the triad
  • Openness of parents to diversity and multiculturalism in the context of transracial and transnational adoption
  • Innovations in clinical practice, social work, and pre/post adoption practice


We are seeking presentations, papers, research posters, and workshops.


Guidelines on Time Allotted for different formats
Papers/Presentations: 20 to 45 minutes
Workshops: 90 minutes

Include the following information in your submission proposal:

  1. Primary Author/Presenter and Affiliation(s)
  2. Contact Information for Primary Author/Presenter (e.g., address, phone, email)
  3. Co-Presenter(s) and Affiliation(s)
  4. Contact Information for Co-Presenter(s) (e.g., address, phone, email)
  5. Title of Presentation/Paper/Poster/Workshop
  6. Format: Presentation, Paper, Research Poster, or Workshop
  7. Goals (list 3-4)
  8. Content Description of the Presentation (600 words or less)
  9. Intended Audience
  10. Summary for Brochure (50 words or less)
  11. Curriculum Vitae/ Resumes for all presenters
  12. Statement on Originality of Presentation (Has this workshop/presentation been presented prior to this conference? If so, when? Where? How many times?)
  13. Audio/Video Recording Consent Statement


Submit deadline extended to Thursday, April 15, 2010.
Please send proposal electronically to adoptioninitiative@gmail.com.