Beyond the Textbook: Incorporating the Wisdom of Lived Experience
Dates: 9/14/26, 9/21/26, and 9/28/26
Time: 12-2pm EST/11am-1pm CST/9-11am PST
Faculty: Angela Tucker, Dr. Hollee McGinnis, and Tony Parsons
Taught entirely by professionals who are also adoptees, this course will address the accuracy of what the mental health community thinks it knows about the adoption experience. Addressing the history and ethics of involving those with lived experience, this course takes a fresh approach on assessment and how therapists can become more conscious throughout the treatment process. Lifelong factors will be
addressed, and case examples will be used for participants to work through.
About the Faculty:
Angela Tucker is a Black transracial adoptee, is an author and internationally recognized speaker on adoption, race, identity, and inclusion. Her debut book, "You Should Be Grateful:" Stories of Race, Identity and Transracial Adoption was published in April 2023 by Beacon Press. Angela's search for her biological family is featured in the documentary CLOSURE. In 2022, Angela founded the Adoptee Mentoring Society to provide virtual mentorship for adoptees world-wide. With 15 years in child welfare, she has appeared on CNN, The Red Table Talk, The New Yorker, and more, advocating for adoptee stories. She lives in Seattle with her Emmy-award-winning spouse, Bryan Tucker.
Hollee A. McGinnis, MSW, Ph.D., is a prominent scholar, policy expert, and community organizer on adoption and child welfare. Hollee held previous roles as Assistant Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) School of Social Work and also as the policy director at the former Donaldson Adoption Institute, where she headed a national study on adoption and racial identity among adopted adults. She is a Korean transnational and transracial adoptee and in 1996 she founded Also-Known-As, Inc., a non-profit adult intercountry adoptee organization providing post-adoption services to international adoptees and adoptive families. Hollee speaks regularly at national conferences and organizations and has numerous published scholarly articles, book chapters, and essays. In 2008 she was recognized by the U.S. government with a Congressional Angel in Adoption award for her work in adoption. She is regularly sought out by the news media including interviews about her research on South Korea’s child welfare system and overseas adoptees by the New York Times Magazine, BBC News, and NPR.
Robert “Tony” Parsons is a black transracial adoptee (one of 24 children in his family, 22 of whom are adopted) and a dedicated advocate with a background in public policy, education, and child welfare. He is committed to empowering individuals, fostering collaboration, and advancing equity. With degrees from Michigan State University and Georgetown University, he has held roles at Youth Villages, the Capacity Building Center for States, and the Michigan College Access Network. Currently serving as the Director of Public Policy and Finance at Oakland Thrives, Tony works to align government institutions and actors to serve the Oakland community better. His involvement in various community initiatives and his leadership in organizations such as the Emerging Leaders Advisory Council, currently their chairman, and the National Foster Youth Institute demonstrate his commitment to social justice and his ability to drive positive change.
Beneath the Mask: The Intersectionality of Adolescence and Adoption
Dates: 10/2/26, 10/9/26, and 10/16/26
Time: 12-2pm EST/11am-1pm CST/9-11am PST
Faculty: Debbie Riley, LCMFT
Adolescence is a time when adoptees struggle with an extra layer of challenges related to their identity formation and integrating their sense of self as it relates to their adoption journey. Participants will explore how the typical developmental tasks of the teen years are intensified and complicated by adoption, particularly if teens are being raised by parents of a different race or culture. Participants will gain an understanding of how to assess how adoption influences the developmental process of identity formation, separation from parents, and interpersonal relationships, including birth family connections. Based on the book, Beneath the Mask: Understanding Adopted Teens, by author and C.A.S.E. CEO Debbie Riley, this training highlights “the six spots where teens get stuck” as key vulnerabilities around the adoption experience in adolescence. Assessment considerations and clinical strategies will be explored for application in clinical practice.
About the Faculty:
Debbie B. Riley, LCMFT, CEO, is co-founder of The Center for Adoption Support and Education (C.A.S.E.), a national leader in mental health services for the foster care, kinship, and adoption community. A nationally recognized adoption expert, author, and public speaker, Ms. Riley has 40 years of professional experience, including health care management, administrative, designing and developing nationally acclaimed adoption-competent training programs, and direct delivery of specialized pre- and post-adoption counseling services. Ms. Riley created a continuum of innovative, culturally responsive, evidenced-informed programs to improve the behavioral outcomes of foster and adopted youth and their families, which have become nationally recognized models.
For over a decade, Ms. Riley has built and implemented a framework for training an adoption competent mental health workforce nationally, and is the founder of TAC (Training for Adoption Competency Curriculum). Through two federal grant awards to C.A.S.E from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services through the Administration for Children and Families, Ms. Riley serves as the PI for the National Adoption Competency Mental Health Training Initiative (NTI) and the National Center for Child Welfare Competent Mental Health Services, to improve mental health outcomes for children and families experiencing child welfare systems.
Ms. Riley is co-author of the book, Beneath the Mask: Understanding Adopted Teens (Riley and Meeks, 2006) and Adoption Specific Therapy, A Guide to Helping Adopted Children and Their Families Thrive (Waterman, Langley, Miranda, and Riley, 2018). She is a contributing author to The Need for Adoption Competent Mental Health Professionals in Transracial and Intercountry Adoptions, Cultural Guidance for Professionals (Fong and McRoy, 2016); Training for Adoption Competency Curriculum in The Routledge Handbook Of Adoption (Wrober, Helder, and Marr, 2020); Adoption as a Diversity Issue in Professional Preparation: Perceptions of Preservice Education Professionals, Adoptions Quarterly (Taymans, Marotta, Lynch, Riley, Ortiz, Schutt, Mallery, Embich, 2008); Adoption Competent Clinical Practice; Defining Its Meaning and Development, Adoption Quarterly (Atkinson, Freundlich, Gonet, Riley, 2013); and Training for Adoption Competency: Building a Community of Adoption-Competent Clinicians, Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services (Atkinson and Riley, 2017).
Two-Course Academy Bundle Fall 2026
This two-course bundle includes Beyond the Textbook: Incorporating the Wisdom of Lived Experience and Beneath the Mask: The Intersectionality of Adolescence and Adoption.
