AFTH | Heart-to-Heart with Adoption Influencers Event Recap

This past Thursday, November 17, 2022, Adoptions From The heart hosted our very first Heart-to-Heart with Adoption Influencers event. It was an incredible night getting to hear from all our panelists and getting to meet and hear from our amazing AFTH Family! During this LIVE conversation, we were joined by adoptees and Birth Parents as they shared their experiences and discussed topics such as:

the power of social media
transracial adoption
helping others by sharing their personal stories
what the adoption community can do better
and much more!

Here’s a look at our fantastic panelists:

Panelists:

Taylor Shennett – is an international Adoptee from China. Shennett is very involved on the TikTok platform, holding over 100k followers and over 7 million likes. Much of her content focuses on transracial adoption, misconceptions, and hobbies.
- Fun Fact: Her parents moved to China 7 years ago to immerse themselves in her culture.

Ashley Mitchel (BigToughGirl) – is a Birth mom who placed her son for adoption 17 years ago. She is a huge Birth Mom voice on social media! While her leading platform is Instagram, she also has a podcast, participates in conferences, holds support groups, and more for Birth Mothers.

Melissa Guida-Richards – is an international adoptee from Colombia. She became viral when the Huffington Post published an essay she wrote called “My Adoptive Parents Hid My Racial Identity From Me for 19 Years,”. Guida is an author, adoptee, and advocate.

Isaac Etter – is a transracial Adoptee. He has a company called Identity, an educational platform for adoptive parents run by a majority of adoptees. Etter is also an adoptee advocate, author, and motivational speaker.

Courtney Tierra – is a Birth Mom who placed her son for adoption 22 years ago. She has an inspirational Instagram where she talks about empowerment. She also wrote a children’s book called WORTHY! as a reminder that no matter the journey, you’re always worthy.

Grace Otley – is an AFTH international adoptee from Vietnam. She currently holds the title of Miss Delaware with the Miss America Organization and uses her platform to spread awareness about her adoption journey.

Combined, these amazing panelists have over 200k followers on their social media platforms. They are all doing amazing things for the adoption community. They have books, education, support groups, nonprofits, podcasts, and much more. We were so glad we could have them as part of our panel.

Topics of discussion:

Their stories and how they started sharing on social media
How social media and sharing their story has impacted them and their
Misconceptions about adoption online and the negative side of social media
How being so open about their story online affected their identities
What agencies can do better as a community to support the triad

We also had a video from Jada McCurry, our Public Relations Coordinator, sharing how AFTH has used social media to bring awareness about adoption voices. We shared some of the TikTok videos that a few of our Birth Mothers helped the agency create to spread awareness. We finished the panel with questions. All in all, this was an extraordinary LIVE event! Our attendees were so involved in the conversation and gained a lot of knowleedge about the progression of open adoption and the possible effects, good and bad, it can cause adoptees as they grow up. Open adoption can be the best option, but education is the only way it can stay the best.

We had prospective adoptive parents, AFTH birth parents, staff, and community members join the event. Seeing all participants engaged with these influencers was great, and we received great feedback. After the event ended, we saw people sharing on their Instagram how grateful they were for events like this one. I have included some of the comments we had on the chat:

If you would like to watch the recording, Click Here. You may also visit our Facebook page and watch the recording LIVE.

A huge Thank You again to our panelists for your dedication and to everyone who attended. You all make these events a success! Be sure to follow us on our social media platforms @AdoptionsFromTheHeart to stay up to date with events like this! We’re constantly posting new events and updates there!

What’s Coming Up

If you haven’t heard already, we are having an in-person holiday event, Home For the Holidays, this December 2, 2022, at the Claymont Fire Hall in Delaware. We are so excited to share that this event is open to everyone! There will be snacks, drinks, face painting, crafts, pictures with Santa, raffles, a live program, music, and more!