Thriving Adoptees - Let's Thrive

Crystal Young is the founding director of Hope Center and has served in this capacity since 2018. Crystal is a 2006 graduate of Tennessee Technological University, and holds a Masters of Public Health from Liberty University.

Prior to her role as Hope Center’s Executive Director, Crystal served for 5 years with Tennessee’s Department of Children’s Services, and also as Vice President to Hope Center’s Executive Board. Crystal and her husband Jonathan are proud parents to their two daughters and one son, ranging in age from 13 years to 1 year.

In her role as Executive Director, Crystal looks forward to seeing the hopes and dreams of parenting and adoption become reality for both birth and adoptive families here in the Upper Cumberland.

Hope Center Adoption & Family Services is a Christian family adoptive services center. l

https://www.facebook.com/hopecenteradoptions

https://twitter.com/JamiThornsberry

https://www.instagram.com/hopecenteradoptions/

https://hopecenteradoption.com/

Guests and the host are not (unless mentioned) licensed pscyho-therapists and speak from their own opinion only. Seek qualified advice if you need help.

Connect with Celestina at:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/coachcelestina/

PullTogether is about enlisting parents, families, community members, and young people in the fight to make sure New Mexico's children are safe, cared for, and ready to succeed.

Find out more at:

https://pulltogether.org/

The New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department provides an array of prevention, intervention, rehabilitative and after-care services to New Mexico children and their families.

Find out more at:

https://cyfd.org

Guests and the host are not (unless mentioned) licensed pscyho-therapists and speak from their own opinion only. Seek qualified advice if you need help.

After successfully adopting 2 children in 2020, Eric and Marissa decided to work at helping other families achieve the same.  In addition to a fulltime job as a lead pastor, Eric worked 20 additional hours a week on a side hustle making websites.  Marissa got a part-time job in addition to homeschooling their two biological children.  With these additional jobs, fundraisers, the generosity of friends, and a small grant from “Gift of Adoption”; Eric and Marissa adopted debt-free.  They decided at the end, that something more had to be done to help other families cover the cost of their adoptions.

In addition, God grew a passion within them to make a deeper and generational impact around the world by responding to the question, “Why don’t people in other countries take care of their own orphans?”

After turning the leadership of their church plant over to a new partner church’s senior pastor, Eric and Marissa set out on their next journey to start Achieve Adoption.

Admitting their strengths and acknowledging their weaknesses, Eric and Marissa decided that if the vision of “all countries adopting their orphans” is to be fulfilled, it will require leadership beyond their experience.

Find out more at:

https://achieveadoption.org/

https://intransitstudios.com/

Guests and the host are not (unless mentioned) licensed pscyho-therapists and speak from their own opinion only. Seek qualified advice if you need help.

Jenn is Co-Founder & Executive Director of UARE Utah Coalition for Adoption Reform & Education.

She's been recognized nationally with Spokeo Search Angel Award 2015 for personally facilitating over 100 adoption reunions.

She has also lead online support community for over 300 members of the adoption constellation and trained teams of volunteer DNA researchers to help adult adoptees find birth families

Connect with Jenn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferajohnston/

or [email protected]

Guests and the host are not (unless mentioned) licensed pscyho-therapists and speak from their own opinion only. Seek qualified advice if you need help.

Marcie J. Keithley, Co founder and President, is a retired Vice President of Retail Bank Management and was also a licensed securities and insurance representative serving the financial community for over 32 years. Her background includes sales, management, operations, team development and leadership. She has served on a variety of boards during her career such as Habitat for Humanity, United Way, Kiwanis International and Executive Director for her local Chamber of Commerce.

A birthmom in reunion since 2008, she co founded Indiana Adoptee Network and testified multiple times throughout the years in support of OBC access for the sister organization, H.E.A.R. Hoosiers for Equal Access to Records where she served as Vice President. She also hosts a weekly Friday night virtual event, Adoption Happy Hour, with global attendance from the adoption constellation.

Keithley is the author of The ShoeBox Effect, Transforming Pain Into Fortitude and Purpose as well as the co author of Frankie and Friends Talk Adoption. She is a director for Women’s Writes Publishing and Author Services that gives voice to inspiring women authors and resides in southern Indiana along the banks of the Ohio River.

Connect with her

https://www.facebook.com/shoeboxeffect

https://twitter.com/shoeboxeffect

https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcie-j-keithley/

https://www.instagram.com/theshoeboxeffect/

The roots of the National Association of Adoptees & Parents began in 2009 when Pam Kroskie and Marcie Keithley joined forces in an effort to unseal Indiana’s closed adoption records.

In 2015, Hoosiers for Equal Access to Records (HEAR) a 501(c)4 non-profit organization, was formed dedicated to educating legislators and the public about the importance of original birth certificate (OBC) access for adult adoptees, and mobilizing those touched by adoption to stand up for their rights.

In 2016, upon the passage of SEA91, HEAR formed Indiana Adoptee Network, Inc. (IAN) a 501 (c)3 non-profit organization when it became clear that the education/awareness of state’s lawmakers and the general public around adult adoptee matters was limited.

Over the course of four years, IAN was able to build a nationwide network allowing them to impact education, attitudes, and legislation through their alliance with other nonprofit organizations, annual conferences, newsletters, social media, and webinars.

In 2021, IAN expanded its vision to educate, empower, and elevate adoptee voices when Marcie Keithley and Jennifer Fahlsing founded the National Association of Adoptees & Parents (NAAP), a 501 (c)3 nonprofit organization which is committed to building unity in our community

https://naapunited.org/

https://www.instagram.com/naapunited/

https://www.facebook.com/NAAPUnited/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChLlRoOseJEuSGz-Mitt9ow

Guests and the host are not (unless mentioned) licensed pscyho-therapists and speak from their own opinion only. Seek qualified advice if you need help.

Born in India, adopted at 10 months, raised in Australia, Vin is a true one off. He runs a Facebook group where adoptees and adopters can learn from one another in a friendly and no conflict environment.

Connect with him at:

https://www.facebook.com/VinAdopteewarrior/

https://www.instagram.com/vinadoptee

Here's the link I mention in the show https://www.amazon.com/Michael-Neill/e/B0034PVSJ0

Guests and the host are not (unless mentioned) licensed pscyho-therapists and speak from their own opinion only. Seek qualified advice if you need help.

Annalisa is mixed-race Welsh and Jamaican and was adopted at four years old by Jamaican parents. Annalisa is an award-winning cultural producer, communications and marketing consultant, and journalist whose work and research focus on racial identity, anti-racism, sustainable change, and developmental trauma. You can read more about Annalisa's adoption story here and her thoughts on why adult adoptees need to be heard here.

Connect with her at:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/annalisa-toccara/

https://twitter.com/AnnaToccara

More at:

Adoptee Futures is the first UK adoption organisation made by adopted people, aimed at everyone involved in adoption with adoptees at the centre. Adoptee Futures aims to help create a better future for adoption by reclaiming the adoption narrative, reframing the world's view on adoption, and helping adult adoptees heal through their trauma to evolve into the best versions of themselves. Adoptee Futures is a registered mental health CIC and provides various training, workshops, support groups, coaching, and events. 

https://www.adopteefutures.org/

https://twitter.com/AdopteeFutures

https://www.instagram.com/adopteefutures/

Guests and the host are not (unless mentioned) licensed pscyho-therapists and speak from their own opinion only. Seek qualified advice if you need help.

Here's a bit about Taylor from his website

My name is Taylor and I was born in Cheboksarui, Russia in October 1986. I lived there for five years with my family. I had one brother who is four years older than me and one sister who is two years younger than me. At the age of five, I lost my dad. Since that point, my biological mom, my younger sister, and I began traveling all over Russia as a homeless family, which some considered “Gypsy”. We stayed in train stations, under bridges, in haystacks, and other places I don’t care to remember. For food, I had to jump over fences into other people’s gardens and take vegetables like cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots... just to stay alive. Some days we ate nothing. During the winter, I had to beg people for a place to stay each night on behalf of my mother and sister.

I wanted a chance to go to school as I realized that a life without education would offer us nothing. At an early age, I already knew that to have no education, would offer me a life of nothing later on. Because of our constant moves and homelessness, I had no friends. So, as simple as it sounds, I also wanted to have friends.

At one point in my life, I lived with a family on the farm who decided to become my “foster family”. While not the ideal family: an alcoholic father who refused to come home and help on the farm, a mother who was constantly angry due to her husband’s absence, and an older brother who had severe mental problems and was also full of anger… this was a real family for me. They agreed to put me in school, so I realized one dream and began first grade at the age of 9. The school became my favorite place because, at home, I had to take care of the farm. In the morning, I took the cows to the city where a common caregiver watched them in the pasture, then, I fed the pigs, chickens, and other animals. Only after my chores were done, was I able to go to school. And, I knew once home in the afternoon, other farm chores would again take over such as cleaning pigsties, chicken coops, horse barns and spreading the manure onto the field and garden, cultivate the garden, cut and stack wood for the winter, plow the fields for other crops, sickle the grass to collect hay and store it for winter in the barn and finally feed all animals before dark. On a large farm, the work is never done. Only after all chores were done, was I able to complete homework with dim lights.

​I lived with this family for 4 years, until the age of 12. At the end of the fourth year, I got transferred to another family and after, into a large regional hospital before settling in an orphanage.......

These are some of my memories on paper that I have published.

Thank you so much for reading my story "Wait For Me"

I hope this inspires others to share your past with me and start a healing process. We all have a story to share and I am here to listen....

Connect with him at 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/taylorda/

https://www.facebook.com/WaitForMeByTaylorD

https://www.taylordakake.com/

https://www.instagram.com/tdakake/

https://twitter.com/wdakake

Guests and the host are not (unless mentioned) licensed pscyho-therapists and speak from their own opinion only. Seek qualified advice if you need help.

Dr. Catherine Horvath is a registered psychologist with competencies in clinical work with children, adolescents, and families, as well as forensic work with adolescents.

Dr. Horvath has experience in working with those struggling with disruptive behaviours, self-regulation, attachment, and sexual behaviour issues related to histories of adverse childhood experiences, complex developmental trauma, adoption related issues, Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, and involvement with the child welfare and/or criminal justice systems.

Dr. Horvath has a particular interest in offering parenting interventions and family therapy whenever possible because parents are the most influential people in their children’s lives, and children and adolescents have a better chance of improvement if the whole family is supported.

Connect with her at

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-catherine-horvath-c-psych-a53276b7/

Her Center's mission is to  champion the provision of accessible, effective, trauma-informed assessment and treatment of children, teens, and families impacted by experiences of adversity, trauma, and mental health difficulties.

Find out more at

https://ocfr.ca/

https://www.facebook.com/ocfr.ca/?fref=nf

https://twitter.com/ocfresilience

Guests and the host are not (unless mentioned) licensed pscyho-therapists and speak from their own opinion only. Seek qualified advice if you need help.

David Schunk was born in Smolensk, Russia in 1994.  He was adopted at a young age by an American family from New Hampshire.  He was a resident of Bedford, New Hampshire since he could remember until he left for college in 2013.  He studied Computer Networking and Cyber Security at Champlain College, located in Burlington Vermont.

David currently serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors and Founder for the Russian Adoptees nonprofit organization.  In addition, he served as a Board Member for the non profit group, Adopted For Good.  Adopted For Good advocates for positive rights and positive policies for adopted children.  David has traveled to Washington, D.C. many times to advocate for adopted children with local Congress members regarding adoption issues.

Connect with David at:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dschunk/

https://twitter.com/davidmschunk

Claire was also born in Russia and adopted by parents in the USA.

Connect with Claire at https://www.linkedin.com/in/claireives/

Russian Adoptees is a coalition to support the unique needs of persons adopted from Russia and the former Soviet Union.

Find out more at:

www.facebook.com/RAnonprofit

www.russianadoptees.org

https://www.instagram.com/russian_adoptees

https://twitter.com/russianadoptees

Guests and the host are not (unless mentioned) licensed pscyho-therapists and speak from their own opinion only. Seek qualified advice if you need help.