Once Upon A Time...In Adopteeland

Devon Shendleman is a transracial international adoptee born in India and raised in the U.S. He is a life and executive coach, Keynote speaker, author, CEO and Founder of Fortitude Associates, a premier global coaching firm. He is a veteran adoptee advocate in the community. He served 3 terms on the board of directors and nearly 10 years involved with Heritage Camps For Adoptive Families. Devon joined the board around 2007 and helped expand the mission from 10 camps to 11 camps and a retreat, as they recognized the lack of cultural access for adoptees growing up. Devon has more than 20 years of experience as an entrepreneur, consultant and mentor.

https://devonshendleman.com

https://fortitudeassociates.com

Music by Corey Quinn

Tracey A. Marshall is a same race Black domestic adoptee originating from Chicago, Illinois who currently resides in a Chicagoland suburb.

She is a woman of faith along side her husband, two daughters and grandchildren.

Music by Corey Quinn

Noel Holton Brathwaite is an adoptee who lives in New York and is a tenured Associate Professor of English. Her husband is a scientist who works in the field of Computational Biology. They have a bright and talented son, who is a senior in college majoring in Physics.

Music by Corey Quinn

Aimee Seiff Christian writes memoir and creative nonfiction. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Poets & Writers, The Rumpus, Hippocampus, Pidgeonholes, Atticus Review, SmokeLong Quarterly, Los Angeles Review, and elsewhere. She is a contributing writer to Relative Strangers: Inheritance, Identity and the Meaning of Kinship. She is a writing instructor and developmental editor and teaches memoir and creative nonfiction at GrubStreet and privately. She is currently working on a memoir about adoption, identity, and the long afterlife of separation. She lives in Massachusetts. More at aimeechristian.net.

Music by Corey Quinn

Dr. Joyce Maguire Pavao, Ed.D., LCSW, LMFT is a returning guest.

She was the Founder and CEO of Center for Family Connections, Inc. in Cambridge and New York, Founder and Director of Riverside After Adoption Consulting and Training, PACT (Pre/Post Adoption Consulting and Training, and Pavao Consulting and Coaching. Dr. Pavao has done extensive training, both nationally and internationally. She is a lecturer in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and she has consulted to various public and private child welfare agencies, adoption agencies, schools, and community groups, as well as probate and family court judges, lawyers, and clergy. Additionally, she has worked closely with individuals and families touched by adoption, foster care, and other complex blended family constructions. She has developed models for treatment, and models for training, using her systemic, intergenerational, and developmental framework, The Normative Crises in the Development of the Adoptive Family. Her book, The Family of Adoption, has received high acclaim. Dr. Pavao has received many awards and honors, including the Children’s Bureau/U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Adoption Excellence Award for Family Contribution (2003) and the Congressional Coalition on Adoption award for Angels in Adoption (2000).

Music by Corey Quinn

Elizabeth Barbour. M.Ed. is an adoptee and adoptive mom with 27 years of reunion experience. In 1999, she found her birth mom, birth dad and eleven brothers and sisters. An adoption reunion coach, speaker and author of two books, she’s currently writing her third about building healthy relationships in adoption reunions. Elizabeth helps people find grace and grounding amidst the grief and complexity of the reunion process through self-care, storytelling, and ritual. She lives in Asheville, North Carolina and you can learn more about her at www.elizabethbarbour.com

Elizabeth Barbour's Eventbrite

Music by Corey Quinn

Gretchen Sisson, PhD, is a sociologist who studies abortion and adoption in the United States. She is a researcher at Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health, part of the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. Her research examining adoption decision-making after abortion denial (as part of The Turnaway Study) was cited in the Supreme Court’s dissent in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health from Justices Breyer, Kagan, and Sotomayor. In response to the oral arguments and decision in Dobbs, she authored pieces in the Washington Post, The Nation, and the Washington Post (again). Gretchen’s research been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered and Consider This, as well as in New York Magazine, VOX, and other outlets.

https://www.gretchensisson.com

Music by Corey Quinn

Diana Kayla Hochberg is the author of Connected: Finding My Truth and a late-discovery Black Market Baby. Born in Montreal during the Baby Scoop Era and brought to the United States as an infant, Diana spent decades believing the story she had been told about her beginnings. Then, at thirty-eight years old, she uncovered a life-changing truth: there were no adoption papers, she had never been legally adopted, and the birth certificate she had lived with was false.

It took nearly three decades of searching to uncover the fuller truth about her beginnings. Her journey revealed a hidden history of altered birth certificates, missing documents, and babies moved between Canada and the United States under false records. Born on Canadian soil, Diana believes she was denied not only the truth about who she was, but also the birthright that should have been hers from the day she was born.

In Connected: Finding My Truth, Diana shares her deeply personal journey to uncover her identity, reconnect with family, and reclaim her story. Today, she speaks openly about identity, belonging, and every person’s right to know where they come from, while continuing her fight for the birthright she believes was taken from her.

Diana Kayla Hochberg

Music by Corey Quinn

Charity Barriere Muhammed is an educator, author, speaker, and advocate whose life journey bridges adoption, genealogy, trauma recovery, and Black history. After spending 41 years separated from her biological father, she discovered she is the daughter of Joseph McGill Jr., founder of the Slave Dwelling Project. Her reunion has transformed her understanding of identity, family, and legacy while inspiring her to help others heal through genealogy, truth-telling, and education. Drawing on her years as an educator and her lived experience as a kinship adoptee, Charity speaks about the lifelong impact of adoption, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), resilience, and the power of reclaiming one's story.

Music by Corey Quinn

Charity Barriere Muhammad is an educator, author, speaker, and advocate whose life journey bridges adoption, genealogy, trauma recovery, and Black history. After spending 41 years separated from her biological father, she discovered she is the daughter of Joseph McGill Jr., founder of the Slave Dwelling Project. Her reunion has transformed her understanding of identity, family, and legacy while inspiring her to help others heal through genealogy, truth-telling, and education. Drawing on her years as an educator and her lived experience as a kinship adoptee, Charity speaks about the lifelong impact of adoption, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), resilience, and the power of reclaiming one's story.

Music by Corey Quinn