Adoption-Competent Counseling
A video-first training course
Language, identity, grief, and meaning-making across the lifespan
Developed by Renée M. Murphy, with co-researcher Angela Christianson and faculty advisor Dr. Jamie Bower.
Antioch University New England, 2026.
About the course
Adoption begins with a legal event and keeps unfolding across a whole life, touching identity, loss, belonging, and the story a person tells about who they are. Most counseling graduate programs offer little or no training in any of it, which leaves clinicians underprepared for what adopted clients actually bring into the room.
This course provides foundational adoption-competency training grounded in the Adoptee Lifespan Framework and in qualitative research with adult adoptees. At its heart are recorded conversations with adoptees themselves: most lessons pair a short teaching segment with an adoptee speaking about the topic in their own words, so clinicians learn to feel the experience and notice their own reactions alongside learning what there is to know. The focus is the clinical work of being with adoptee clients. It is designed for licensed counselors, social workers, school counselors, and graduate trainees, and it holds birth-parent and adoptive-parent perspectives as context rather than subject.
The course has launched and is open now at learn.adopteeresearch.org. Registration is free. It takes about 8 hours, self-paced, including the videos. Questions about the course or group access? Email connect@adopteeresearch.org.
The chapters
Most lessons pair a short reading with a reel of adoptees speaking about the topic, a brief reflection, and a one-page takeaway to download. Each chapter closes with a short scenario-based check that is not scored toward the certificate. A final post-test of 32 questions, with a pass mark of 26 (about 81%) and unlimited retakes, earns the certificate of completion.
Orientation
Before we begin: how the course works, how it is assessed, and who it is for.
Foundations
What adoption is and the words that carry weight, the seven core issues, the forms adoption takes, when the adoptee becomes a parent, where adoption resurfaces across a life, and the Adoptee Lifespan Framework.
Identity and Self
Origin, body, and the cultural story; the story you were given; the strategies that protect belonging; where belonging gets built; when the fear of being left comes into the room; and when identity reorganizes.
Loss and Grief
The gratitude bind, ambiguous loss, grief that keeps coming back, being with grief that stays, what pulls you away from grief, and estrangement, including which way it runs.
Language and the Clinical Encounter
The language that keeps it available, what keeps a client coming back, and the intake form as a first message.
Clinical Practice
Is this about adoption or not; raising it when the client will not; formulating across the arc of therapy; adoption and the diagnosis; what the body carries; heading into reunion; the adoption lens in your modality; and the whole family system.
Complexity and Context
Transracial and intercountry adoption, foster-to-adopt and older placement, who counts as family, finding out late, donor conception and NPE, and the system around the client.
Integration and Continued Learning
Where this leaves you: consultation, referral, adoptee-led community, and a plan for continued learning.
Orientation
Before we begin: how the course works, how it is assessed, and who it is for.
Foundations
What adoption is and the words that carry weight, the seven core issues, the forms adoption takes, when the adoptee becomes a parent, where adoption resurfaces across a life, and the Adoptee Lifespan Framework.
Identity and Self
Origin, body, and the cultural story; the story you were given; the strategies that protect belonging; where belonging gets built; when the fear of being left comes into the room; and when identity reorganizes.
Loss and Grief
The gratitude bind, ambiguous loss, grief that keeps coming back, being with grief that stays, what pulls you away from grief, and estrangement, including which way it runs.
Language and the Clinical Encounter
The language that keeps it available, what keeps a client coming back, and the intake form as a first message.
Clinical Practice
Is this about adoption or not; raising it when the client will not; formulating across the arc of therapy; adoption and the diagnosis; what the body carries; heading into reunion; the adoption lens in your modality; and the whole family system.
Complexity and Context
Transracial and intercountry adoption, foster-to-adopt and older placement, who counts as family, finding out late, donor conception and NPE, and the system around the client.
Integration and Continued Learning
Where this leaves you: consultation, referral, adoptee-led community, and a plan for continued learning.
Learning outcomes
After completing this course, participants will be able to:
CE credit is not yet in place. Learners who pass the final post-test earn a certificate of completion, not continuing education credit.
Access the Course
The course is hosted on our learning platform at learn.adopteeresearch.org. Head there to view chapters, register, and track your progress. Questions about the program or group access? Get in touch.