We are just switching our name from Safe Home Podcast to Unraveling Adoption, and this is the first full episode under our new name. 

In this week’s episode, Beth Syverson chats with Leslie Pate Mackinnon, a licensed clinical social worker and an adoption activist for the past 30 years. Leslie is a seasoned and well-respected therapist in the adoption community. She is a nationally known trainer who travels across the country training therapists, agencies and child welfare workers about the psychological issues inherent in adoption and third-party reproduction. Following four decades of successful practice in Atlanta, Leslie and her husband relocated to Asheville, NC. 

Leslie comes to this work by way of being a birthmother in the 1960s, the Baby Scoop Era. She understands adoption trauma deeply, both as a lived experience and as a therapist for all members in the adoption constellation - adoptees, birthparents, and adoptive parents. On Safe Home Podcast, we’ve had 8 episodes so far with adoptees, and 1 episode with another adoptive parent, but this is our first episode from the birth mom’s perspective, which is a super-critical piece of this puzzle.

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💌 Sign up for our Unraveling Adoption email list: http://eepurl.com/hVIAVX

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RESOURCES:

Leslie’s information:

• Website: https://lesliepatemackinnon.com/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063478541379
• Email: [email protected]

Other resource mentioned in this episode:

• Paul Sunderland’s speech about adoption & addiction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3pX4C-mtiI

Other Resources:

• Other Parents Like Me -  https://www.facebook.com/other.parents.like.me
• Heather Ross - Life Coaching for Parents of Addicted Teens: https://heatherrosscoaching.com/
• Find a Tele-Therapist: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/online-counseling

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Unraveling Adoption is produced and hosted by Beth Syverson

Music written and performed by Joseph Nakao

Email questions or comments to [email protected]

Find us on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube

Support Unraveling Adoption on Patreon: Patreon.com/UnravelingAdoption

www.UnravelingAdoption.com

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TIME STAMPS:

  2:00 All voices in adoption matter, and adoptees’ voices come first 

  3:16 Positive adoption language and listening to adult adoptees

  6:35 Birth parents’ stories are often suppressed

  8:16 Leslie’s birth parent experience #1

16:08 Adoptees and birth parents both get stuck in culture’s judgements about adoption

17:03 Coping with trauma with substances, the intersection between adoption and addiction

25:30 Adoptive parents talking openly with their children about their adoption

28:35 Leslie’s birth parent experience #2

33:25 Birth parents’ difficulties, then and now

39:00 The importance of family preservation, and Follow the Money

44:10 How Leslie & Beth are dealing with their past regrets