Evolution of An Educator: from Counselor to Consultant
by Sarah Harper
November 10, 2024
My journey from child therapist to founder of an adoption competency consultation firm has been one of transformation and revelation. It's a story of uncovering hidden truths, challenging conventional wisdom, and embracing a new path to make a lasting impact.
I spent over a decade in clinical practice as a therapist, primarily working with children and families. I worked with a population that had experienced a high degree of trauma. As a trained child-centered play therapist, I had experience with very young, pre-verbal, and non-verbal children. I worked with a significant number of foster children and adopted children.
My personal connection to adoption runs deep. I am an adoptee myself, raised in a home with three adopted siblings. My parents also fostered children when I was young. I genuinely believed I had a comprehensive understanding of adoption and trauma. "Go ahead," I'd think, "try to find someone with a better grasp on adoption and trauma than me."
Later in life, due to a series of events in our family, I found myself at 38 having to come face-to-face with my own uncovered and unresolved adoption trauma. Once I began learning and joining other communities of adult adoptees who had gone through similar revelations, I was dumbfounded. The more I listened, the more I realized my own misunderstandings.
I was shocked at the gaps in my own consciousness. However, I also began to realize how inadequate my education and training had been. It hadn't prepared me to understand the profound impact of adoption trauma, especially compared to how we typically address trauma in a care setting.
As I learned more and spoke with people close to me, I realized that the overwhelming number of doctors and therapists I knew had a real knowledge gap about this. And I have learned that this lack of knowledge is intentional. Accurate information about adoption is withheld and manipulated, leaving most people with a superficial understanding of the issues adoptees face.
Over the past five years, I've contemplated the best ways to help. I've concluded that it's not through direct treatment of adopted individuals, but rather through educating the communities around them. If there are industries intentionally hiding information, we need to be intentional about informing. And that's why I'm here.
