Dialoguing About Adoption: A Workshop

Friday, 11/6

10:00-4:00

The Presidio of San Francisco

RSVP by Friday, 10/30

 This workshop offers a unique opportunity for people with different connections to adoption to explore how to engage in productive dialogue with each other. We will begin by visiting the Operation Babylift: Perspectives and Legacies exhibition at the Officer’s Club of the Presidio. Using that story as a jumping off point, we will reflect on our personal experiences and practice how to dialogue about them – even when they are very different from each other. This is a highly experiential workshop including a gallery visit, learning about the practice of dialogue, structured activities and hands-on practice.

The workshop facilitator, Dr. Bert Ballard, will create the space to do this work. Dr. Ballard is a transracial adoptee, an adoptive parent and a Communications researcher and teacher with extensive experience facilitating complex conversation.

 WHO SHOULD ATTEND?

 This workshop is open to anyone with a personal and/or professional connection to adoption including:

• Adoptees and foster alumni
• Birth/first parents
• Adoptive and foster parents
• Family members of people with an adoption experience
• Placement professionals
• Therapists
• Social workers

 WHAT DOES IT COST?

 The workshop is FREE. You will need to bring or purchase your own lunch.

 HOW CAN I LEARN MORE or REGISTER?

Send an email to info@adoptionmuseumproject.org. We will follow up to share more details, answer any questions and register you.

WHAT IS THE REGISTRATION DEADLINE?

Friday, 10/30.

WHO IS ORGANIZING THIS?

 The Adoption Museum Project co-developed this program with the Presidio Trust, as part of a public program series supporting the Operation Babylift: Perspectives and Legacies exhibition. Pact, An Adoption Alliance, an adoption placement and support organization serving children of color, is our community partner.

RELATED PROGRAMS

Narrative Burden: Thursday, November 5, 7 PM

An Evening of Playback Theater: Stories Inspired by Operation Babylift: Thursday, December 10,  7 PM

All programs are free. The exhibition gallery is open until 7 PM on program evenings.

THE EXHIBITION

Operation Babylift: Perspectives and Legacies is a physical exhibition co-curated by Adoption Museum Project and the Presidio Trust. It was shaped from concept to copy by over 40 community contributors. The exhibition explores the diverse experiences and lasting impact of Operation Babylift, a dramatic airlift that occurred in April 1975 as Saigon was falling. Through this action, the U.S. removed more than 2,000 Vietnamese children from their war-torn country so they could be adopted by American families. At the Presidio, 1,500 of these children were cared for by more than 5,400 volunteers. Meanwhile, Operation Babylift itself was being debated across the country.

The exhibition runs through April 3, 2016. It is located in the Presidio Officer’s Club in San Francisco: 50 Moraga Avenue, San Francisco, CA.