It’s been a while, so I thought I would give an update on some of what I have been working on lately.
I was fortunate to be asked to present at the Pact adoption family camp. I presented a keynote about school issues based on the article I published with Pact’s Executive Director Beth Hall for the book Transracial and Intercountry Adoption.
My colleagues working on the KAD parent study presented our findings at the Korean Adoptee Adoptive Family Network (KAAN) conference in Pittsburgh this past June. We are currently writing an article based on this study.
I had two articles published recently. The first is an article written from my research on adoptive parents who placed an intercountry adopted child in out-of-home care due to the child’s disability. That article, You Can’t Run into a Burning Building Without Getting Burned Yourself: An Ecological Systems Perspective of Parents Choosing Out-of-Home Care for an Intercountry Adopted Child was published in the Families in Society journal.
Abstract: Increasingly, intercountry adopted children have special needs similar to children adopted from foster care in the United States. Out-of-home placement may be necessary when less restrictive services have not adequately addressed an adopted child’s needs. The experiences of 19 adoptive parents who chose to place their intercountry adopted child in out-of-home care due to their child’s disability were explored through qualitative interviews and family ecomaps. Themes emerging from interviews relate to adoptive parent definitions of adoption and disability, challenges identifying and accessing services, and the effects of placement on their family, within an ecological systems perspective. Findings show the need for service providers to better understand the impact of an intercountry adopted child’s disability and preadoption history on family adjustment, as well as to support parents through the out-of-home placement process.
The second article was published in the Adoption Quarterly journal and it is based on the research conducted by Dr. Bibiana Koh, Dr. Ruth McRoy and myself. The article is titled, Exploring Adoption-Specific Curricula in Undergraduate and Graduate Degree Programs.
Abstract: The systemic impact of adoption suggests the need to explore adoption-specific curricula in baccalaureate and graduate degree programs. Using a convenience sample, the present exploratory study collected data in two phases. Phase one included email requests for adoption syllabi to professional listservs and to identified faculty with adoption research and practice expertise. In phase two, 22 faculty who responded by emailing syllabi, were invited to participate in an online survey. Results only begin to unveil what we know about adoption-specific curricula in higher education. Suggestions for future research are discussed.
JaeRan Kim 