Session 1

Information-sharing Prior to Adoptive Placement – What is Required and What is Ethical?

• What do prospective adoptive parents have a right to know?
• What medical, social and background information should professionals be required to find, share with, and interpret for prospective adoptive parents?
• How can ethical practice in sharing information with prospective parents best be promoted?

Bruce A. Boyer is a Clinical Professor and Director of the Civitas ChildLaw Clinic of the Loyola University Chicago School of Law. He has taught and practiced in the area of children's law for almost 20 years, specializing in issues related to child welfare, child custody and adoption. He also has taught courses in juvenile law, trial advocacy, ethics and administrative law. Professor Boyer is the author of numerous articles on issues relating to children and the law, including ethical issues on representing parents in child protection hearings and the right to counsel in termination of parental rights cases. He is currently a member of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute's Board of Directors and a member of the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism. He has served as Chair of the American Bar Association's Steering Committee on the Unmet Legal Needs of Children. Prior to his position at Loyola, Professor Boyer taught for 12 years at the Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago, where he served as Supervising Attorney of Northwestern's Children and Family Justice Center.

Dana E. Johnson, M.D., Ph.D. is a Professor of Pediatrics, a member of Division of Neonatology and Director of Research and Education for the International Adoption Clinic at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Johnson's research focuses on the short- and long-term effects of early childhood institutionalization on child health and development. Dr. Johnson serves on the Editorial Boards of Adoption Quarterly and Adoptive Families Magazine and is a Senior Research Fellow of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute. He has authored over 200 journal articles, book chapters and abstracts.

Nora O'Farrell is the Director of Adoptive Families Together (AFT), a parent-run program of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. As Director of AFT, O'Farrell oversees the provision of education, advocacy, training and support to families, professionals and communities about the unique circumstances inherent in adoption. Her experience includes collaboration with child welfare agencies, working with children and youth with behavioral health issues, and providing post-adoption support for families.

Johanna Oreskovic is the Director of Post-Professional Educational Programs and International Students Services at the University at Buffalo Law School, where she also teaches courses in adoption law. Her primary interest is the regulatory framework within which international adoptions are conducted. Professor Oreskovic has lectured widely on the use of the Immigration and Nationality Act's visa fraud prosecutions and child trafficking for purposes of international adoption. She is a member of the Board of Directors of Ethica.

Session 2

Protection Against Exploitation – Bribery, Fraud, Unqualified Practitioners and Truth in Advertising

• How can adoptive parents identify ethical adoption professionals?
• How has the internet influenced the way that adoption is practiced, and what are the consequences from both family and agency perspectives?
• What lessons can be applied to adoption from consumer protection laws and policies?
• What are the most important protections for prospective adoptive parents in international adoption?
• What is the most appropriate, effective legal response to trafficking in children for purposes of adoption?

Madelyn Freundlich is a child welfare professional with more than 15 years of experience in child welfare practice, program development and implementation, training, policy and research. She has written extensively on child welfare issues. Freundlich formerly served as General Counsel and Director of Child Welfare Services for the Child Welfare League of America, Associate Director of Planning for the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Executive Director for the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, and Policy Director for Children's Rights, Inc. In these capacities, she worked with public and private child welfare agencies and child welfare organizations across the country, providing consultation and training and developing practice, program, policy and research initiatives that have gained national recognition. Freundlich holds master's degrees in social work (MSW, Louisiana State University) and public health (MPH, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) and two law degrees (JD, University of Houston and LL.M., Georgetown University).

Patricia (Pat) Irwin Johnston, MS, has spent the last 25 years as an infertility and adoption educator and advocate. The mother of three (now young adults who joined the already broadly adoption-expanded Johnston family through their adoptions), Johnston has been a highly visible and outspoken consumer advocate, serving on several national boards of directors and committees and receiving awards from NACAC, JCICS, RESOLVE, APC and a Butler University Alumni Achievement award. She is the author of several books, including the new Adopting: Sound Choices, Strong Families. Johnston is also the publisher at Perspectives Press, Inc: The Infertility and Adoption Publisher.

Vicki Peterson, LICSW, is the Executive Director of External Affairs at Wide Horizons for Children, an agency based in Massachusetts. Peterson has worked in the field of adoption for 28 years and has traveled to orphanages around the world, helping to develop both humanitarian aid and adoption programs in 20 countries. In her role at Wide Horizons for Children, she focuses on advancing the agency's mission, its visibility in the adoption community, and advocacy for children in need of care.

David M. Smolin is a Professor of Law at Cumberland Law School, Samford University, and Director of the Center for Biotechnology, Law and Ethics. He works together with his wife, Desiree Smolin, on adoption reform issues. The Smolins are the parents of eight children, including two adopted as older children from India.

Session 3

Ethical Adoption Policy and Practice for Children in Foster Care

• How can federal and state policy best support the needs of children in foster care who are waiting for adoptive families?
• What practices need to be implemented, promoted or strengthened to ensure that all waiting children in foster care have a real chance to be adopted?
• Are new policies and practices needed to shorten the time that children in foster care wait for adoptive families?

Joe Kroll is the Executive Director of the North American Council on Adoptable Children (NACAC). An adoptive and birth father, Kroll became involved with NACAC in 1975 and has served as its leader since 1985. He has taken NACAC from a small grassroots organization to an acclaimed nonprofit that serves thousands of adoptive parents each year and strives to improve the child welfare system for foster children and the families who care for them. Kroll's work includes talking with individual families about how to obtain post-adoption support, training parent group leaders and other foster and adoptive parents, testifying before Congress, and speaking at the White House to achieve needed system reforms to better serve vulnerable children and families. He is committed to achieving system reform by building a network of adoptive families at the grassroots level. By bringing together parents, professionals, and policy makers for more than two decades at NACAC, Kroll has significantly improved the lives of adoptive families throughout the U.S. and Canada.

Ruth McRoy is a Research Professor and the Ruby Lee Piester Centennial Professor Emerita at the University of Texas at Austin School of Social Work. She is a Board Member and Senior Research Fellow of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute and serves on the board of the North American Council on Adoptable Children. Dr. McRoy has authored or co-authored eight books and numerous articles and book chapters on adoption and child welfare issues. Her latest co-edited book (with Rowena Fong and Carmen Ortiz-Hendricks), Intersecting Child Welfare, Substance Abuse and Family Violence: Culturally Competent Approaches, was published in 2006.

Jane Morgan is the Director of the Capacity Building Division of the Children's Bureau, Administration for Children and Families, US Department of Health and Human Services. This Division coordinates child welfare training and technical assistance provided to States and Tribes to assist them in providing quality child welfare services. Under her leadership, the Children's Bureau's Training and Technical Assistance Network has enhanced coordination and collaboration across the federally funded National Resource Centers and other child welfare grantees. Morgan was recognized in 2005 with the Administration for Children and Families' Assistant Secretary's Award for Exemplary Leadership for her work in promoting the Department's national adoption initiatives, including the Collaboration to AdoptUsKids. Morgan joined the Children's Bureau in 1999 as the National Adoption Specialist after a 23-year career in child welfare with the Oklahoma Department of Human Services. She is a member of the Child and Family Service National Review Team.

William Thorne is a Pomo/Coast Miwok Indian who has served as a part-time tribal court judge in 11 states for over 25 years. After serving as a full-time state trial judge for 14 years, he was appointed in May 2000 to the Utah Court of Appeals. Judge Thorne served as president of the National Indian Justice Center for 20 years and is currently its vice president. Among his many positions with state and national organizations, he is past-chair of Utah's Racial & Ethnic Fairness Commission and is co-chair of the Policy Committees of the North American Council on Adoptable Children and the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute. He also served on the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care; the Board of Directors for National CASA; and the ABA's Steering Committee on the Unmet Legal Needs of Children. Judge Thorne has coached soccer at the little league, university men's and adult women's level for 25 years, after playing the sport himself in high school and college.